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KARL JASPERS FORUM TA 26 by Amit Goswami: THE HARD QUESTIONS: VIEW FROM A SCIENCE WITHIN CONSCIOUSNESS Commentary
SCIENCE WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS: COLLAPSE OF REASON
by P. Jones
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First, I did not intend to interfere with the discussion between two theorists of same ilk,
Goswami and Sarfatti, since, so far, I can hardly find anything worth commenting in their
special conceptualizations. However, some of my friends got confused by Amit Goswami's
books, which they could not properly understand, being not much versed in neither physics
nor philosophy. I felt the necessity to disclose the tricks used by some writers to fool
naive readers, who are apt to give the author credit for whatever they do not grasp
in their writings, yielding to the pressure of science-looking terminology and abundance
of references. An honest person usually takes for granted that the others are as honest,
never expecting any fraud on their side. It is the duty of those who can observe
the deception, to bring it to light.
One more motive for submitting this comment came from that, personally, I do not like
when somebody's creativity is rudely dismissed on the ground that the author is
"obviously not a physicist" (Sarfatti), or not a philosopher, not an artist etc.
Quite often amateurs differ from professionals only in their ability to sell their
product, but not in the deficiency of the product as such. On the other hand,
both Goswami and Sarfatti are nothing but amateurs in the areas they discuss
(I am going to show that below, in Goswami's case), and they can hardly expect
anybody respect their thoughts more than appropriate.
This comment is not addressed to Goswami (Swift) or Sarfatti, since, if they are under
the veil of delusion, words can hardly help, and if they are swindling, there is no need
to help. I hope to make a modest contribution to the spiritual resistivity of those
who have not yet been trapped in pseudo-scientific and quasi-philosophical sophistry
of the writers like that.
To make it clear, I do not deny the presence of certain interesting ideas in
Goswami's (or Sarfatti's) works, since they reflect a number of objective tendencies
in cultural development. It is the perverted way of their presentation and identification
with an essentially retrograde position that must be criticised. Provided there are
no better books, one might use Goswami's writings as a departure point for more
productive thought - similarly, nothing prevents one from coming to the relativity
theory or genetic engineering starting from the Bible.
This exposition of the numerous faults of Goswami's/Sarfatti's writings happens
to be rather lengthy due to extensive quotations - however, I have to do that
to illustrate their poor competence in the area they penetrate, and the techniques
they use to disguise that. In the first section, I give a (very incomplete) list
of typical sleights of hand; the second section demonstrates that Goswami has rather
vague notions of physics in general and quantum physics in particular (despite all
his teaching experience). The next section is to indicate the poor kind of philosopher
Goswami appears to be. Then I spend some space to show that Goswami's article
has nothing to say about consciousness. In conclusion, I grieve about the objective
circumstances that favor the proliferation of obscurant teachings like that.
In this section, I would simply list a few typical methods used to deceive the reader
and produce the impression of profound thought. Almost any writer (including myself)
can find the traces of such swindling techniques in their texts, and it is impossible
to entirely exterminate them from the practice of human communication without
a complete reorganization of the cultural core of the society. The more important
is exercising everyone's ability to separate the content of any work from its
deceptive ornamentation.
Traditionally, logic demands that any discourse would obey the principle of identity:
one must use the same set of markers for the same object throughout the argument.
In a wider context, one would speak about the integrity of any product, which determines
it as a product of a particular activity serving a definite purpose. That is, there
must be something in the end, rather than idle browsing from one idea to another,
without knowing where to arrive; the latter way is more appropriate for animals,
not for conscious beings. This criterion, for instance, can be used to distinguish
a work of art from mere exercising certain skills. In the present context, I will
only be concerned with term definition and usage in a written/spoken text.
There are many kinds of term substitution. In the most evident case, the same word
or phrase is used in different sense in different parts of the text. For example,
Goswami writes:
"...material realist view (the ontology that everything arises from matter and its
correlates, energy and fields)."
The word "matter" is first used as a correct characteristic of materialism, where that
philosophical category denotes the world as it exists on itself, without any recourse
to consciousness; in the end of the phrase, however, mentioning energy and fields
substitutes this meaning with another: matter in the narrow sense, mass.
Another example is provided by the arbitrary use of the term "measurement", which can,
depending on the context, designate anything at all (except, possibly, measurement proper).
Most physical terms are used by Goswami in that frivolous manner; for instance, Goswami's
"coherence" may refer either to the superposition of pure states, or to the so called coherent
states in many-particle systems, or merely serve as an alias for any collective effects at all.
Similarly, the word "experience" is used either as a reflection of the world in the subject,
or cerebral traces of the body's interaction with its environment, or self-experience, or awareness,
or feeling, or something reported, etc. This is not evident (and even doubtful) that all these
meanings can be covered by the idea of experience. The natural ambiguity of the English language
succors many such shifts of meaning.
A more advanced technique is implicit term substitution, when a common term is used to refer
to an object that has never been explicitly named. Thus, in the phrase: "Is there an unambiguous
way to discern between a quantum and a classical computer model of cognition?" - Goswami implies
rather narrow classes of "quantum" and "classical" models rather than any application of classical
or quantum mechanics in the study of consciousness. Further, speaking about "masking" the words
with "patterns", Goswami does not specify the kind of masking, which is essential for interpreting
the experiments described.
For another example, both Goswami and Sarfatti speak with enthusiasm of non-locality - and they
do not agree with each other since they mean different things by that.
Also:
One can be quite sure that nobody has ever dealt with any "collapse" in a usual psychophysical
experiment based on latent time measurement. The mystical "collapse" is implicitly substituted
for something ordinary and understandable.
And:
That is, Goswami takes a particular approach and calls it conventional (later, he blabs it
out: "conventional cognitive science"). There are many other approaches thus ignored.
Identification can be considered as a sort of implicit term substitution, when a few terms
are used as synonyms, referring to something that is not commonly associated with these terms.
It is quite normal for human thought to discover similarities in apparently quite different
things. However, an honest author would explicitly stress every instance of establishing
such a relation, drawing the audience's attention to it rather than distracting it. This
is especially characteristic of the arts, with their inclination to bright metaphors.
In science, metaphorical word usage must be properly conditioned; in philosophy, it can
only occur as an explicit scheme, that is, with an indication of respect, in which the
two things can be identified. Without that, any identification becomes a swindling instrument.
Goswami's text contains numerous identifications. Thus, he writes:
"But in unconscious (subliminal) perception, in which consciousness but not awareness is present..."
In this phrase, the unconscious is identified with the subliminal, which is not a widely
acceptable choice. Using this truncated term in other context, Goswami is bound to encounter
conceptual difficulties, and his attempts to overcome them inventing yet another arbitrary
construction may only cause a pity for a person who cannot see real problems and hence
makes his best to get stuck in artificial ones. This is what the hard problem of consciousness
really is: lack of consciousness in a conscious being.
More examples:
"But in material realist cognitive science..."
"This includes our brain-mind."
"So the mental world is a whole, or what physicists sometimes call an infinite medium."
"A well-known characteristic of learning is that learning a performance..."
"Yet the subject consciousness of the experience (the subject pole with the qualia of experience)"
Judging by the public argument around "qualia", nobody can tell what they could be and whether
the very term makes any sense; here, Goswami replaces one poorly defined term with another as obtuse.
"The current model, with two separate substances that are connected via consciousness
which simultaneously collapse parallel actualities in both bodies, gives a mechanism
for psycho physical parallelism. However, the new model is different from the old
psychophysical parallelism in the sense that experience modifies both bodies as states
of the two bodies become correlated by experience."
First the role of a mediator between two (artificially divided) "bodies" is given
to consciousness, and then the same role is said to be played by "experience",
whatever is meant by that.
And finally, a whole basket of intertwined identifications:
"The programs of the mind can be simulated by computer algorithms, hence the temptation
of assuming that mind is reducible to matter, and mind is brain."
The mind is identified with some computing device, mind models are identified with
the mind, and matter identified with the brain.
To allow easy term substitution and identification, it is convenient to avoid definitions
and explication of any specific constructs produced by the author, so that they could be
assigned any property needed to support the author's ideas at any moment.
In Goswami's texts, such terms as "consciousness", "object", "subject", "collapse" etc.
are never properly defined, which makes them easy to manipulate, to achieve the a priori
chosen conclusion.
"This has been corrected in quantum functionalism in which consciousness is defined
to transcend both matter and mind."
Since there have been no definitions, consciousness is declared to be "transcendental".
"But then where does the purposiveness of mind come from ? Logic dictates that only
consciousness can inject purposiveness in the world."
Consciousness is arbitrarily ascribed the property of "injecting", whatever it means
or does not mean.
"And yet the subtle substances can communicate with the physical substance through
the intermediary of consciousness."
Goswami arbitrarily introduced "consciousness", "subtle substances", "physical substance",
and "communication" - as arbitrarily, he joins them in one sentence.
"How does an electrical impulse pass from one neuron to another across a synaptic cleft ?
Conventional theory says that the synaptic transmission must be due to chemical
neurotransmitters. E. H. Walker (1970) thinks that the synaptic cleft is so small
that quantum tunneling of electrons may play a crucial role in the transmission
of nerve signals. Eccles (1986, 1994) has discussed a similar mechanism for invoking
the quantum in the brain -- his microsites that mediate the quantum connection
between neurons at the synapses do seem to satisfy the small-mass requirement of quantum
behavior (Herbert, 1993)."
A good example of how people invent daemons to settle them in a pinhole.
"The latest entry in this field is the work of Hameroff (1994) who sees this coherent
build-up in the structure of microtubules within the brain cells (see also, Penrose, 1994)."
One can design as many arbitrary models as one likes, but they cannot pretend to be
anything beyond mere play of the mind, and there is no special need for them in the
neurophysiology of the brain, and even less in studying consciousness.
"But in the case of the correlated brains,"
No idea of brain correlation has been discussed in the text, and one can understand
(or rather not understand) this phrase in any likely and unlikely way.
"Because consciousness of the experience transcends the brain-state of the
quantum/classical ensemble,"
One entirely arbitrary statement...
"the latter is clearly an incomplete description of the experience."
...implies another, as arbitrary.
"Because consciousness may choose to collapse identical possibility waves simultaneously
in two correlated locally-separated observers."
And no word about why it happens to "collapse" in 1/4 cases only,
and not in the other 3/4 cases...
"What is the difference between gross physical and subtle substances ? One big
difference has to be the grossness of the macroworld of our shared perception
in the physical domain."
What is "grossness" or "subtlety"? One can assert anything about that.
Thus, in the thesaurus of MS Word (press Sfift-F7 with the cursor on the word),
one might find "debility" as a synonym for "subtlety", and "savageness"
as a synonym for "grossness"...
"It may, indeed, be evidence against a homunculus, as Eccles assumes, because
the homunculus has the right representation still available to it."
It is always safe to talk about an imaginary being: you can give it any properties you need.
And the summit of it:
"... something profound also takes place ..."
One can derive anything from such a fundamental postulate!
This logical fault is brought about by employing the elements of different levels
in the same argument. Thus, philosophy and science are different, and one cannot
use philosophical considerations to prove the validity of a scientific model,
and inversely, science is no argument in a philosophical discussion. Similarly,
metaphors and other artistic tools are not directly applicable in science or philosophy,
as well as a formal construction or an explicit ideological position would be
inappropriate in a work of art.
Goswami can never distinguish physics from philosophy, presenting physical models
as an expression of philosophical ideas, or philosophical schemes as scientific
findings. Even within physics, there are different levels of description, and
they get cobbled together in a sleight of hand. Those who aspire for synthesis
may be thus swindled into impression of something integrative behind the scene -
however, the very way this something is carefully avoided to discuss betrays the truth:
there is no sense in the mix.
Identifying conscious beings with animals is one of the favorite tricks of many
conceptual swindlers. As soon as one does not distinguish conscious life from
life in general, there appears a wide range of possible ways of manipulation,
according to the trivial logical scheme: if the Moon has ears, than the Earth
has the form of a suitcase.
Also, it is ridiculous to explain anything in consciousness with the help
of a trivial psychophysical experiment; a scientist would rather try to reveal
the distinctions of human from animal psychophysics due to the interference of consciousness.
"Experiences lead to learning, one aspect of which is developmental changes
in the brain-mind's classical substructure - the memories and representations of experience."
Mixing learning and memory is as unacceptable as mixing the brain with the mind.
Implicitly, experience is here identified with mere conditioning, without any word
about specifically human experiences.
Also, see above:
"How does an electrical impulse pass from one neuron to another..."
continued with
"Stapp (1993) also thinks that quantum processes play a key role in the release
of neurotransmitters from vesicles into a synaptic junction. An action potential
pulse opens channels for diffusion of calcium ions into the vesicular release sites."
What has all that pseudo-physiology to do with consciousness?
A specific example of level mixing is confusing a reflection of a thing with the thing itself:
"Ordinary perception consists of the collapse of a possibility wave by consciousness
(via recognition and choice) in the presence of awareness."
Ordinary perception does not consist of any "collapses". Rather, it may modeled
that way in some weird "theories". Identifications of that sort logically follow
from the initially idealistic stand; one could scan Hegel's works for the pattern.
Also: "Apparently, choice, and therefore quantum collapse..."
The latter clause could as well be deleted.
As a remnant of scientific thought discipline, one reads: "there should be no collapse
of the wave, according to our quantum model." Sarfatti is more accurate in that respect,
always referring to a model; however, that does not prevent him from an implicit
identification of the model with reality, which, however, requires a special demonstration,
I would not waste time to present.
"Some of these alternatives propose to modify quantum mechanics in a major way (for example,
nonlinear theories); others are not philosophically satisfactory
(for example, decoherence theories);"
It is nonsense to say that some scientific model is "not philosophically satisfactory" -
there are scientific criteria of consistency, and the practical value as the ultimate
criterion. It is only philosophy that may need to be consistent with other philosophy.
Later, we find:
"With a reinterpretation of Bohm's work, his philosophy of implicate and explicate orders
also needs to be modified."
That is what Goswami really tries to do: talking philosophy. So, no physics can be
referred to, but as an illustration by analogy.
"But there are two theories, one due to David Bohm (19), and the other called the many
worlds theory (Everett, 1957),"
These are not theories, but rather primitive philosophical speculations illegally
appealing to science for support.
All the above can be immediately applied to Sarfatti, who proudly declares:
"I am doing physics here not metaphysical flimflam."
But consciousness study is hardly an appropriate place to do physics -
one must do consciousness study instead. Mixing one science with another,
it is Sarfatti who "is ill-posing the problem."
Since no person can know everything, there is a good opportunity for a swindler:
just say some nonsense in a manner hinting to some circumstances well known to
the author - and the readers will have to suspect themselves of ignorance.
This is one of the dirtiest tricks, playing on the essential psychological
vulnerability of an honest person. The only way to resist it is to decide
that no statement that does not have grounds in the text itself can be worth
any consideration, and should be crossed out of it, the rest (if any) representing
the "sediment" of the text's true content. One must well trust the author to loosen
that kind of filter.
For instance, the following sentence should have been filtered out:
"Quantum physicists have argued these matters of interpretation for decades without consensus."
One who does not know much about quantum physics may believe that the author
is well aware of the wide and colorful picture of the tedious effort of the scientists
to comprehend what they really do... However, the only "physicists" this statement
implicitly refers to is a narrow group of former scientists who left science
to enter philosophical debates, on the same footing with any out-of-science interpreters.
Quantum physicists just worked and did what they do to get many practical results.
It is philosophers who tried to use anything (including vulgarizations
of quantum mechanics) to support their non-scientific (and even anti-scientific)
views. Unfortunately, a number of well-known physicists took part in those philosophical
discussions - having no proper philosophical background, and no inclination to get any,
they readily became the captives of somebody else's views, marionettes in the hands
of those who did not care for science, but rather for the social and economic interests
of certain social groups. However, as soon as one is engaged in a philosophical argument,
one has to be a philosopher rather than scientist, and one's words must be judged
accordingly, without any reference to scientific merits of the person's earlier work.
In a mass, as my experience suggests, physicists are prejudiced against philosophy,
since they could never understand it enough; from the other side of this philosophical
ignorance, physicists often get tempted to talk philosophy, since they believe it
to be simpler than physics, judging by what is called philosophy in the vulgar
("popular") textbooks.
Note, that nearly the same sentence:
"Some quantum physicists argued these matters of interpretation for decades without consensus."
would have a quite different air and not imply much behind the scene, hence
leaving room for discussion.
Both Goswami and Sarfatti like presenting hypotheses as facts, very special models
for general ideas. A typical disguize is presenting things as if their models
have added something to earlier knowledge, except unnecessary complication,
and trivial facts become put forth as brand-new discoveries.
"one thing is certain: consciousness is needed to make actuality out of the possibilities
that the dual quantum system/classical measurement apparatus(es) present."
This is not a "certain thing", but an arbitrary statement.
"The quantum theory distinguishes between conscious and unconscious perception."
This not a distinctive feature of any quantum theory. Most psychological theories
treat the unconscious as different from the conscious one way or another.
That Goswami's discourse happens to mention it too is in no way an argument for,
or indication of the theory's validity.
"Unconscious processing is found to be of crucial importance in the creative process,
for which a quantum explanation has been given (Goswami, 1999)."
The unconscious has been known for centuries to be of importance for creativity.
No quantum theory was needed to indicate that.
The easiest way to become a champion is to compete with an imaginary rival.
First, Goswami demonstrates that his arbitrary approach gets stuck in paradoxes,
and then triumphantly declares that
"The paradoxes raised against this hypothesis have now all been satisfactorily
solved (Bass, 1971; Blood, 1993; Goswami, 1989, 1993; Stapp, 1993)"
...with other as arbitrary constructs. No real achievement, but impressive!
There are numerous methods of manipulating the reader's psychological weaknesses
to foist the feeling of authority on them. Just assume a pseudo-academic style,
intersperse the text with numerous references, and especially self-references,
use a dozen of incomprehensible terms - and it's done: the reader becomes
fascinated and knocked out of critical thought.
"One type of model of the quantum in the brain-mind posits a superfluid-like
coherence in the movement of a constituent matrix (Stuart et al, 1 978; Lockwood, 1989)
arising from the interaction dynamics of the many-body system. The latest entry
in this field is the work of Hameroff (1994) who sees this coherent build-up
in the structure of microtubules within the brain cells (see also, Penrose, 1994)."
Sounds fantastic! Does it matter that it has nothing to do with consciousness
as the main topic of the text, and there is very little sense in it at all?
Don't doubt, just feel the sacred awe in the face of the Great Teacher!
Skilled stress on the Teacher's superiority over the ordinary mortals
(communicating through one of the adepts, mentioning his busy schedule etc.)
is to complete the new religion.
While Goswami prefers implicit demonstration of superiority, Sarfatti readily
comes to depreciating phrases like:
"He is obviously not a physicist and seems to have no understanding of the subject"
However, if Sarfatti admits:
"All I see is excess verbal baggage",
how could he be expected to put forth any "perfectly rational sensible objections",
as he pretends to? In fact Sarfatti's stand has nothing to do with rationality,
being replete with illegal identifications, logical loops, level mixing, arbitrary
assumptions etc. As a kind of disguise, Sarfatti tries to exercise psychological
pressure pretending to know more than his readers:
"The only thing I have said about quantum tunneling is in the context
of the recent Russian paper
http://ufn.ioc.ac.ru/abstracts/abst98/abst9810.html#d
But, when one reads the paper referenced, one can find nothing of the sort in it.
This is a mere description of a specific patterns observed by a group of Russian
scientists (biologists, not physicists) in measuring various statistical distributions.
There is nothing about "quantum tunneling", or "signals from the future".
The results described in that papers indicate the importance of accounting
for the methods of discretization used in any measurement, and the temporal
correlations revealed are most probably due to the procedures of clock synchronization
adopted in Russia. Sarfatti's appellation to that paper is absolutely off the context.
"See also
Once again, there is no empirical evidence of reverse time flow presented...
The examples of conglomeration of pseudo-terms like coherence, possibility,
transcendence, or the "subject pole with the qualia of experience", can be
found in Goswami's text in mass. I will rather concentrate on the habit of
some writers to declare things that are far from being firmly established
with an air of certainly and definiteness preventing any objections.
"It is well known that all attempts by psychologists and neurophysiologists
to split the unity of a conscious experience (for example, by surgically
splitting the brain hemispheres) have failed."
This is not well known, and even wrong. There has been no experimenting
with consciousness as such, and it is only the integrity of perception
that could be meant. However, numerous cases of split perception have been
described both in scientific literature and in the arts - and many people
could experience the feeling of internal dialog (or argument); moreover,
what about doubts?
"One of the principal aspects of quantum functionalism is non-locality. Evidence
for quantum non-locality of our experience abounds in the literature of paranormal
phenomena (see, for example, Jahn, 1982)."
But there is no evidence of the existence of any paranormal phenomena. Currently,
this is a matter of personal belief, not science. Even less one could tell anything
about quantum non-locality (whatever it means) from any psychological experiment.
"Two subjects are instructed to meditate together for a period of twenty minutes
in order to establish a direct communication"
Why should one believe in "direct communication", telepathy and such? Meditation
is a common psychological technique, but it has nothing to do with all that.
"One such unusual characteristic is faster-than-light propagation. In the phenomenon
of quantum tunneling, the time taken by a quantum object while going through the tunnel
can be measured, and such measurements are now revealing a compelling case of
faster-than-light propagation (Chiao)."
One more example of a hypothetical phenomenon used to explain an arbitrary construct.
Faster-that-light propagation is far from being a fact, since there is no evidence
that could be commonly acknowledged.
One more typical trick is exploiting ordinary people's vague ideas about what
mathematics is for, and the common prejudice that once something has been
mathematically derived, it must be certainly true. Combine it with a reference
to some unknown "theorem" proved by an unknown person - and you can convince
the reader in anything:
"cannot be used to transfer information, according to a theorem attributed
to Philippe Eberhard."
The reader is almost sure to know little about all that, and about the simple
fact that physics never deals with information, which is the domain of
a different science, communication theory. Any talk about "information transfer"
may only be figurative in physics, despite the abundance of around-physics
speculative literature trying to play on sheer term confusion (entropy in physics
is a quite different kind of thing than entropy in communication theory).
One more technique of producing impression:
"Conventionally, Western philosophers"
This implies that the statement to follow is to convey some idea common to most
Western philosophers. In fact, what follows does not characterize Western
philosophy at all, at best being an opinion of a small group of philosophers,
not necessarily Western.
"In accord with conservation principles that conventional science has established,"
What is meant under "conventional science" here? In science, conservation principles
are never absolute, they only work under certain conditions. The very existence of
a conservation principle means that there is a way to violate it.
A standard technique used by the street sharpers to draw their victims in the game
is emulating fair play: a few rogues play among them and demonstrate how one can
eventually gain a good sum; when a credulous fool believes them and enters the game,
they swindle money out of him. Similarly, a few persons may emulate a scientific
or philosophical discussion, referencing each other, challenging each other
and demonstrating smart replies etc. This produces a kind of cultural context
supporting their artificial constructs and impressing the newcomers; however,
this cannot render such discussions more scientific or philosophical.
The simplest way to have a lot of evidence is to invent it. One can develop
a pseudo-science around any imaginary thing: ufology, astrology, phrenology,
demonology... For instance:
"Mental substance is subtle; it does not form gross conglomerates. In fact,
as Descartes correctly intuited, mental substance is indivisible. For this substance,
then, there is no reduction to smaller and smaller bits; there is no micro out
of which the macro is made of."
Fine. Invent a chimerical thing like "mental substance" and enumerate as many
its properties as you like. There are many "theories" of that ilk, from Pythagorean
numerology to modern "universal physics", one example of which has once been
presented at the KJF. Quite often such artificial constructions become an instrument
of social oppression, like in the case of the medieval Malleus Maleficarum,
or more recent Mein Kampf, or a number of popular socioeconomic theories.
There is a couple of steps from identifying consciousness with the brain
to "exact measurement" of who is conscious enough and who is not,
and social discrimination.
Everybody understands that one cannot explicate any detail of a theory in an article
of a very limited size. The authors have to omit certain details and apply for
the reader's credit and respect. However, this objective circumstance opens wide
horizons for swindlers, who can well present poorly connected ideas as if they were
connected elsewhere, in a different discourse. In many cases, the reader will hardly
ever check it - and those who try will only find more hints to an explication given
elsewhere, and never the explication itself.
Logical gap is a trivial trick of that kind. Just connect two arbitrary statements
with implication, and make the readers think that they are not smart enough to grasp
the intricate logic of the discourse.
"If this quantum explanation of the Marcel experiment is correct, then the experiment
also demonstrates the existence of coherent superpositions in the brain-mind."
No explanation has been given indeed, and it is absolutely unclear, why the existence
of psychological sets should imply any quantum effects in the brain?
"A thorough analysis (McCarthy and Goswami, 1993) shows that, indeed, if the two
ambiguous words are shown simultaneously and with a pattern mask, then, due to quantum
interference, the recognition times for the target word can be drastically different
from what is predicted by connectionist models. Thus this experiment should be able
to establish beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of quantum coherent superpositions
in the brain-mind."
Any "thorough analysis" based on arbitrary assumptions can only be compared with
another as abstracted "theory", as it happens here. Logic is out of this deal,
and no relation to the psychophysical experiment described has been established,
and even less to consciousness study.
"But then where does the purposiveness of mind come from ? Logic dictates that
only consciousness can inject purposiveness in the world."
This is a very perverted kind of logic. One unknown thing is said to produce
another, without any comment on how all that relates to the real world.
"In accord with conservation principles that conventional science has established,
this subtle substance does not interact with the material substance in any direct way;"
Why? No argument for that, except the a priori assumption that it should be
something mystical.
"As another application, a mental body which is conditioned by experience opens
up the notion that some aspects of us may survive death. In other words, the doctrine
that if the brain dies, the mind dies, can be challenged."
Slogans. No term in this sentence has been properly defined, and no logic can be traced.
"cannot be used to transfer information, according to a theorem attributed
to Philippe Eberhard."
Even barring the inappropriate reference to information, one could only wonder
in which way that "theorem" could be related to the matters discussed in the text.
"attribute properties of consciousness -- experience and choice -- to the mind."
This sentence has no sense outside a context distinguishing consciousness and the mind,
and at least some explanation why experience and choice should be considered
as characteristic of consciousness.
"Since probabilities are multiplicative, if the probabilities are classical, then
the total probability for choosing C for all subjects will be:
5(P1 + P2)."
The result is absolutely incomprehensible, since no model has been described that
would allow to calculate anything. Goswami is not interested in how subjects behave
to produce the answers, he merely puts forth an arbitrary assumption and declares that
"Any deviation from this estimate will tell us about quantum interference and thus
about the quantum nature of the probabilities and, thereby, of choice (Woo, 1981)."
Nonsense. I will comment on the "quantum nature of the probabilities" in the next
section, and identifying it with choice is utterly irrational.
"Additionally, I believe that something profound also takes place in the
self-referential quantum/classical coupled system."
When logic is dead, beliefs reign. Goswami believes that there is
something he cannot comprehend, and, instead of doing science and/or philosophy,
he falls into profanation of the both.
Of course, no deception could make success without a mask of plausibility and promise.
That is why the tricksters of all sorts mix their fabrications with a number
of assertions and claims that would appeal to certain groups of the possible readers -
like poison in a meal. Thus, Goswami plays on the integrative tendencies in the modern
culture, when interdisciplinary research is praised high, and the rate of paradigm
exchange between different sciences rapidly increases, as well as the attractiveness
of the attempts to marry science with art, or science with philosophy; the latter
is often a very unequal marriage, more like swallowing of scientific rationality
by some mystical dogmas - and religion has always been eager to tame science,
making it mere interpreter of the Scriptures.
Extensive appellations to physics in Goswami's texts are intended to flatter those
physicists who are not well enough educated to escape the professional snobbism,
making them believe that physics can explain anything at all, and no other science
(or philosophy) is needed.
To please different philosophical schools, Goswami introduced numerous declarations
in the text: mystics are certain to be the selected nation; but objective idealists
are strongly assured in Goswami's sympathies too, and subjective idealists may enjoy
his stress on that everything comes from consciousness; dualists should be content
with the overall eclecticism of the approach and the "theory" of two substances;
positivists may be happy playing with measurement and verification, and even
materialists get their bone: "barring solipsism"!
The trivial idea that the brain (together with the rest of the human biological body)
functions as a whole within a definite operational context is presented as an achievement
of Goswami's approach, to make happy modern system theorists, and the idea
of self-reference, a vulgarized extract from Hegel, is to appeal to second-order
cybernetics and similar conceptions.
To attract psychologists of various schools, Goswami mentions many psychological
phenomena as if they were explainable in his line, without giving himself any pain
of proving that.
For a religious person and a Philistine, Goswami adds a bite in the form
of possible immortality.
So, everybody can find something for themselves, and thus be induced to think:
well, the rest of the text is sheer nonsense - but it still has a glimpse of reason
in it, and hence can be tolerated.
A scientific study is to develop formal models for a specific range of phenomena,
to indicate the directions of their practical usage. In particular, a scientific
approach implies two indispensable components: purposefulness and modesty.
To be purposeful, a science is to concentrate efforts on its subject (that is,
the range of phenomena to study - do not confuse with the conscious subject who
does the study), and provide the results in that very field, rather than try
to solve problems of some other science. As one of my physics teachers used
to say, if you need an angle, calculate angle rather than mass. In the present
context it would sound as: if you need to describe consciousness, speak
of consciousness, and not anything else.
Modesty is the other side of purposefulness: treating a definite subject,
a science must be always aware of the limited applicability of its models,
so that determining the scope of the model's applicability becomes an important
part of any scientific research. Normally, the criteria of applicability are
obtained from a more general model, allowing for derivation of the model in question
as a limiting case; quite often, the domains of different models get first
empirically discriminated, which serves as a stimulus for developing a more
general approach, which would have its own applicability limits. Different
models may have intersecting domains, in which case the problems of applicability
range becomes of crucial importance for the practical usage of the results of
the science. There may also be boundary regions, where neither model works
satisfactorily; this demands a special model for the boundary region, combining
the elements of models on the both sides of the boundary - this latter models
will be only applicable in the boundary region it has been intended to cover.
Consequently, if you meet a statement like "I am doing physics here" (Sarfatti),
you can be sure that there is nothing about consciousness there, and omit the rest
of the text, unless your are interested in physics rather than consciousness.
Similarly, if somebody tries to declare that a specific model is universally
applicable and gives a comprehensive explanation of something, you can be sure
that this has nothing to do with science, being a kind of poor philosophy.
Neither Goswami's, nor Sarfatti's approach satisfies the demands of purposefulness
and modesty, and hence their writings cannot be called scientific in any respect,
and the academic look they might assume is nothing but a disguise.
Putting aside the pertinence of Goswami's approach to the study of consciousness,
one might question the very presence of a model to discuss. Both Goswami and Sarfatti
invite physics to support their position, and dismiss any objection on the grounds
of insufficient "professional competence" of the opponents. But are they
professionally competent in physics themselves? As I am going to demonstrate
on Goswami's example, the answer should be a definite "no".
Let us look closer to what Goswami puts forth as physics.
1. Quantum mechanics
As it seems, Goswami's knowledge of quantum mechanics (and probably other physics too)
comes from poor popularizations and philosophical essays rather than the physical
literature proper. He cannot see neither the specificity of quantum physics nor
its propinquity to all the other branches of physics.
"The wave amplitude of an object in quantum mechanics (technically called a wave
function or a coherent superposition) corresponds to a spread-out wave
of possibility in potentia"
This sentence sounds absurd to a quantum physicist. First of all, three different
concepts are mixed together: a quantum amplitude ("wave amplitude" is an instance
of vulgar word usage) is a mathematical object representing a state of a quantum
system - it is also called "state vector", if considered as an element of the (extended)
Hilbert space of all the possible states; the term "wave function" usually refers
to a function defined on the configuration space of the system as one of the possible
representations of its state vector; finally, coherent superposition is usually
a way of transition from one set of basis vectors to another (regardless of a particular
representation), and, in quantum physics, it plays a role similar to that of changing
the frame of reference in classical mechanics.
Physics never deals with anything like "possibility in potentia". In science, things
are much simpler: every physical system is modeled with a formal (often mathematical)
construction, and the properties of that model are related to observables through
an interpretation scheme, which is virtually derived from a definite experimental
set-up. Thus, the traditional quantum mechanics and quantum field theory is based
on the scattering experiment, so that it is only the integral properties of
the system that become observable; this leads to the common S-matrix (or K-matrix,
R-matrix etc.) approach in calculating the "intensities" of quantum transitions,
which may sometime be called probabilities in the physical slang, bringing in some
term confusion much speculated upon in idealist philosophy. In the standard quantum
approach, only the asymptotic behavior of a quantum system is physically meaningful.
It is only recently that the possibility of studying the fine details of the transition
has been demonstrated, up to experimentally distinguishing coherent processes
[Godunov et al., J. Phys. B 33, 971 (2000)].
There also exist coherent states that can be observed macroscopically: lasers,
super-fluidity etc. However, they do not principally differ from any other physical
phenomena, and it is in specific macroscopic conditions that such effects can be obtained.
"How does a laser get its special intensity in a narrow pencil beam, or a superfluid
its special flow characteristic? The answer in each case is the phase coherent motion
(as in dancing in step) of the constituents."
Coherent motion is not a specifically quantum phenomenon. The quite classical motion
of two bodies connected with a rigid join will be perfectly coherent, and one can
readily provide hundreds of examples like that. Look at a mechanical chronometer
to get a picture of perfect coherence in the motion of its different parts. For direct
counterparts of quantum coherence, one could mention auto-resonance in mechanical systems,
various feed-back schemes in electric circuits, solitons, acoustic fronts, and many other
examples of the same type. Eventually, any motion at all is self-coherent to certain extent
unless it is unstructured chaos, white noise. Quantum coherence is a special case
of coherence in physics, and a stationary quantum state is an analogue of a standing wave,
while non-stationary states may correspond to various kinds of dissipative wave packets.
"The quantum equation of the self-referential system of the brain-mind must continually
be modified by the repeated measurement interactions."
Goswami seems to be unaware of the self-consistent models in quantum theory. Ordinarily,
there is no reason for changing the equations of motion for a many-body system with strong
interaction from one instance of interaction to another. In a quantum process, everything
that occurs between the initial and final states (asymptotic states determined by
the experimental set-up) must obey the same dynamics, and the only possibility is
redistribution of the relative strength of different interactions, as in reactions
with charge transfer or post-collision interaction. Otherwise, the process splits
into a cascade, with no interference and intensities summed rather than amplitudes,
quite classically. The both limits are determined by the collision kinematics,
the macroscopic preparation (as physicists say) of the microscopic event. One may
need a different equation of motion only if the experimental scheme has changed
between the two quantum events, which is certainly not the case in most experiments.
"Mark Mitchell and I (Mitchell and Goswami, 1992) have proposed that the modified
equation is nonlinear (technically called a nonlinear Schrodinger equation) as opposed
to the ordinary quantum equation (the Schrodinger equation) which is linear."
There are hundreds of nonlinear models in quantum mechanics, of which fact Goswami
seems to know nothing. Such models are difficult to use, and, in practical
calculations, physicists often resort to various linearizations, thus obtaining
special models applicable in a limited domain.
The Schrödinger equation cannot be said to be linear or not on itself - this depends
on the interactions involved, and hence the form of the potential included in
the Schrödinger equation. In the limit of independent particles, the interaction
term is linear; as soon as dynamic coupling is to be taken into account, the very
existence of a potential may become doubtful, and various approximations are used
to preserve the formal resemblance to the Schrödinger equation: average potential
(mean field), optical potential etc.
In the perturbation theory language, linearity is the lowest-order approximation,
while already in the second order one has to consider numerous nonlinear effects.
Using the standard (diagrammatic) interpretation of the perturbation scheme,
we speak about virtual interactions (those occurring between the asymptotic states
registered in the experiment): in a weakly coupled system, the particles interact
just once during the reaction, and linear description is enough; however, many
practically important cases imply two or more interfering interactions in the
so called interaction region, and the theory must be nonlinear.
I could only mention the numerous nonlinear models in quantum field theory, starting
from the famous Young-Mills theory, up to the tentative schemes of quantum gravity.
However, nonlinear equations are not the only way to introduce nonlinearity. Even
with a linear equation of motion, one can get nonlinear dynamics if the boundary
conditions are nonlinear (which is often referred to as spontaneous symmetry violation).
There are classical analogues: linear systems with nonlinear constraints. In quantum
mechanics, there is a source of inherent nonlinearity, normalization: the demand
that the microscopic process should be consistent with macroscopic environment
(certain types of incoming and outgoing particles, momentum/energy conservation,
or other constraints) is formally reflected in the normalisation scheme applied,
which can be linear only in an isolated quantum system interacting with no other
bodies, which is a very strong approximation that can only be considered as an ideal
case, an abstract model that should be applied with caution to real systems.
It is only theorists like Goswami who can identify such abstract models with reality.
"Non-linearity means that the current value of the possibility wave function depends
in a complicated way on its value at a previous time."
This is wrong. There may be different kinds of nonlinearity in a stationary system,
without considering any time dependence at all, and there may be rather complex time
dependence in a linear system, under certain kinematic conditions.
"The truth is, except for quantum measurement, matter is law-like - cause driven.
The time development of matter is entirely given by the laws of quantum mechanics."
This is sheer nonsense! Time-dependent models can be found everywhere in physics,
and it is in quantum mechanics that temporal dynamics is the most commonly ignored,
leaving the room only for virtual sequencing, in-between the observable asymptotic
states. Laws of quantum mechanics reflect a very limited area of the possible
phenomena, and modeling time dependence has never been a strong side of quantum theory.
"Is the play of probabilities in the brain-mind classical, or quantum?"
For the time being, let us ignore the circumstance that there is no such thing as
brain-mind. However, the very talk of quantum or classical probabilities is absurd:
there are no classical or quantum probabilities, since, for interpreting a quantity
as probability, it does not matter how that quantity has been calculated.
"There is a distinct mathematical difference between classical and quantum probabilities."
Sheer nonsense. Mathematically, to be interpretable as probability, a measure
must satisfy a number of axioms that do not involve any reference to physics
at all, quantum or not (e.g. ref. [G.J.Klir & T.A.Folger, Fuzzy Sets, Uncertainty
and Information (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988)]).
"In quantum mechanics, the probability amplitudes are added algebraically before
squaring to find the net probability, for example, of the result of the passage
of electrons through a double-slit arrangement. In classical physics, on the
other hand, the probabilities simply add."
The vulgar usage of the term "probability" in this context can only be justified
by the historical reasons, ascending to the dawn of quantum mechanics, when the
physicists did not yet well know how it could be used. One should never identify
this physical "probability" with what is called probability in mathematics, and
even less with the common language meaning of the word. Physical terms may sound
like the words of the ordinary language, but they mean different things as physical
terms. Thus, it would be ridiculous to picture a colored quark and try to smell
its flavor. Similarly, the terms like probability, entropy, energy etc. have
a special meaning in physics that may be different from the meaning of the same
words elsewhere.
It would be more appropriate to speak about intensities rather than probabilities
in physics, to refer to what is actually measured. There is no such thing as a
"probability amplitude" (a school textbook term), there are quantum amplitudes
(better: pure states, vectors) that can be used to calculate intensities
(rates) for various processes.
Here, Goswami only describes the methods of calculating "probabilities", or rather
the numbers of particles, in a quantum or classical theory. The intensities
themselves are always macroscopic (which, by the way, makes the very comparison possible).
Moreover, amplitude summation is in no way a monopoly of quantum mechanics:
there may well be correlated classical processes quite analogous to interfering
processes in quantum mechanics. The latter has borrowed the slang of the classical
wave theory from optics, acoustics, hydrodynamics, etc. For another example,
a system of few coupled oscillators may have natural modes analogous to pure
quantum states, as well as chaotic regimes, which can be described in a "classical"
way. When a fast enough classical harmonic oscillator interacts with a remote
body, oscillation phase becomes irrelevant for the interaction in most cases
except a few "resonance" points - this is exactly what happens in quantum mechanics.
"It is the addition of amplitudes before squaring them that gives the phenomenon
of quantum interference."
Exactly like any wave amplitudes add to produce wave interference, no matter quantum or not.
"In other words, they are wave of possibility given by the quantum wave function."
This is an anti-physical interpretation that leads to further inconsistencies.
Trying to juggle "possibilitites" into physics is nothing but philosophical idealism,
inability to distinguish the scientist from what he studies.
"The quantum state of the subjects' brains would then become a coherent superposition
in response to the ambiguous signal, fifty percent for recognizing A and fifty
percent for B [...] Suppose the probability of choosing C after having
chosen A is P1 and after having chosen B
is P2 (P1 and P2 can be measured
by repeated experiments with several subjects)."
One cannot speak about probabilities if a quantum model is meant; on must sum
amplitudes and introduce a transition operator that would produce intensities
("probabilities") from the amplitudes. The way Goswami handles probabilities shows
his absolute ignorance in quantum mechanics.
"In the case of the double-slit experiment, for example, Bohm's particle equation can
show us curved trajectories of how a particle may be able to go through one slit
and still arrive at classically forbidden places on a fluorescent plate."
It is funny, how petty philosophers of all kinds seriously refer to the "double-slit
experiment" that has been invented as sheer abstraction, a means of visualizing
a particular calculation technique. This confusing illustration appeals to the
macroscopic notions one may have, as if they were applicable in a quantum process,
which is certainly not the case. One might as well think that the diagrams of quantum
electrodynamics could picture the motion of the particles involved!
Quite naturally, when one tries to treat a very incomplete analogy as an exact
description, inconsistencies are bound to abound. The "double-slit" set-up is
far from the scheme of quantum experiment, and it cannot be used to deduce anything
about nature and its laws.
"How does the particle know that the other slit is open and veer itself to the quantum
mechanically allowed places?"
The question is incorrectly formulated. In quantum physics, there are no particles,
waves, or any other macroscopic formations. It is only for a macroscopic observer
that quantum systems may seem to manifest certain particle-like or wave-like behavior.
Unfortunately, up to now, there are people who cannot admit that there is something
in the world that does not fit into their macroscopic views and Philistine notions,
that something can be unattainable to the five human senses and still remain real
and observable, with indirect methods.
"but when we observe, we see the object localized like a particle."
This is not true. In a quantum experiment, we do not usually observe waves or particles -
we just measure spectra of various kinds (integral, differential, angle-resolved etc.);
the analysis of these spectra within a certain physical model may allow a physicist
to assimilate the system either to a collection of particles, or a superposition
of waves, depending on a number of formal similarities - such an assimilation can
never be anything but analogy, it does not possess any methodological significance,
and physics can well do without it, save the fact that physicists live in a macroscopic
world and macroscopic analogies for microscopic events can help to "visualize" an abstract
model and thus make one's intuition work.
Quantum objects are neither particles nor waves. They are quantum objects obeying specific,
but well definable laws.
"So the mental world is a whole, or what physicists sometimes call an infinite medium."
Physicists do not need weird terms like that. They may model one medium or another,
but they are always aware that physical "infinity" is different from mathematical
"infinity", and "much greater" (by an order of magnitude) is often enough in physics
to discriminate between different levels of description.
"Although the macrobodies of our environment are made of the micro quantum objects
that obey the uncertainty principle, because of their grossness"
There is no such physical term: "grossness". Rather the word should be applied
to the way Goswami treats physics: cruelty, brutality, savageness (if you have
MS Word, press Shift-F7 with the cursor on the word).
"Bohm's waves are not physical waves. Instead, they satisfy the Schrödinger equation."
One might think that the waves satisfying the Schrödinger equation are not physical!
However, physics by definition works only with what is physical, regardless of whether
it is observable or not. A mathematician may ponder over the completeness of the set
of the possible solutions of an equation - a physicist, in most cases, will quickly
dismiss some solutions as unphysical, and proceed with the physical ones.
"cannot be used to transfer information, according to a theorem attributed to Philippe Eberhard."
"Through the nonlocal influence of the quantum potential, which acts as a source
of 'active information'."
Physics does not deal with information, and it is only through term confusion
and illegal identifications that is can be introduced. An analysis of the numerous
attempts of that sort should be given elsewhere. I would only point at the weird
terminology like "nonlocal influence of the quantum potential" or "active information"
that does not bear much science in it.
"demonstrating the radicalness of quantum physics"
No sense. Science cannot be radical or not, and one model is worth another. Quantum
physics is applicable in one case, classical mechanics in another; thermodynamics
helps to solve yet another problem. Preferences are beyond science.
When a person arrives in a country inhabited by a different race, all the people
may seem much like one another, and it must take time and good will, to learn
to distinguish faces. Similarly, Goswami's poor knowledge of physics (and other
science) gives way to the lack of discrimination as the specificity of the subjects
of different sciences, and the objects described by different models within one
science. The only way to overcome this blindness is learning, and one must want
to learn for that. Otherwise, one's position will be like that of a racist, who
claims all the "niggers" (or "Jews", or "Russians"...) to be the same; it does
not matter whether that uniform mass will be despised or deified.
"All objects are quantum objects."
This is entirely wrong. Only the objects involved in a quantum process are quantum
objects. There are all sorts of other objects, at different levels of the hierarchy
of the forms of motion. The same thing can be a different object in different activities,
in different respects. Denying that means the death of science.
"Note that I am not introducing a classical/quantum dichotomy. Ultimately, all
objects are quantum objects; therefore, a classical measurement apparatus can
never really measure a quantum object."
Being unable to see the difference between classical and quantum motion, and hence
their close kinship and relatedness to each other, Goswami perceives any distinction
at all as rigid "dichotomy". Yes, it would not be wise to oppose one science to another;
but it would be even less wise to reduce all sciences to one. Not all objects are
quantum objects, and the only measurement we can do is with macroscopic devices -
however, these macroscopic objects involve microscopic processes as their part, and
we can observe their macroscopic traces, that is, perform indirect measurement.
Quantum object = object involved in a quantum process. Quantum experiment is designed
to initiate certain quantum processes. Industrial devices assist in another class
of activities that may be similar to quantum experiment in some respects.
"This question, I think, can be answered with an even more decisive and objective
experiment that can discern between classical and quantum models of the mind."
Experiment does not discern between different models. Rather, attempts to apply different
models for interpreting experimental results reveal their relative applicability to
the particular type of experiment. Some models better describe one class of experiments,
other models work better for a different class of experiments involving the same object.
Physical experiment is a special case of activity that may involve various objects in
an either classical or quantum way, or rather a combination of the both. The organization
of the experiment determines the types of models applicable to it, and sometime
a theoretical model may suggest the organization of experiment required to reveal
the effects predicted.
"Now in order to determine the trajectory of an object, we need to know where an object
is now but also where it will be a little later; in other words, both position and
velocity, simultaneously."
In physics, trajectory does not need to lie in a usual 3-dimensional space; rather
this is trajectory in some phase space (or a manifold) that may be very unlike the
Euclidean 3-dimensional space the popular literature gets stuck in. This is so
already in the usual classical mechanics [V. I. Arnold, Mathematical Methods of
Classical Mechanics (Moscow: Nauka, 1979); V. V. Dobrolyubov, Foundations of
Analytical mechanics (Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola, 1976)], and especially in
statistical physics and quantum mechanics. Goswami identifies any object at
all with a (macroscopic) particle, which is wrong, since there may be other
kinds of objects following trajectories of a different kind.
Already in classical physics, there are objects other than particles: waves, fields,
continuous media etc. What would Goswami call a trajectory of a gas?
"Thus macro bodies can be approximately attributed both position and momentum and
therefore, trajectories."
Quantum systems also have trajectories, in their configuration space,
infinite-dimensional. Those trajectories may be not observable - but they
are a physical as any other kinds of trajectories, as long as they may be
used to obtain any observable values.
"So we can never determine accurate trajectories of quantum objects."
There is no need to determine them. The fundamental principle of quantum physics
is irrelevance of an individual path of reaction to the observable characteristics,
which are always averaged over all possible trajectories (in the general sense
indicated above: in the space of the system's states). The very question about
the trajectory of an electron in atoms is absurd, unless we move to a theory
different from quantum mechanics.
On the other hand, the accurate trajectories of classical objects too are nothing
but theoretical abstraction. There are no point particles in physics, and one has
always to omit certain modes of motion as irrelevant to the problem considered.
It is in classical mechanics that such popular techniques as perturbation theory
or WKB method have been born.
"Although the macrobodies of our environment are made of the micro quantum objects
that obey the uncertainty principle, because of their grossness, the cloud of
ignorance that the uncertainty principle imposes on their motion is very small,
so small that it can be ignored in most situations--this is called the
correspondence principle."
This is a most vulgar formulation of the correspondence principle. The latter is
a fundamental paradigm of the modern science asserting a quite simple thing: if
two theories have intersecting areas of applicability, the must lead to the same
results in the boundary region, and there must be a correspondence between their
basic quantities. The correspondence principle does not say anything about regions
where only one description is applicable - various manipulators prefer to forget
about that and present inadmissible extrapolations as new "radical" conceptions.
This is the true "cloud of ignorance", advocated by poor philosophers.
"What prevents ordinary macro-objects from displaying significant quantum uncertainties
of movement is their mass."
This is an entirely wrong statement. First of all, there are no "uncertainties"
in quantum physics. All its laws are quite deterministic, and calling, say, spectral
line broadening a manifestation of some intrinsic uncertainty is an instance of vulgar
word usage. In the same way, one could imagine people smelling quarks, since they
possess flavor - disregarding the fact that quantum flavor has nothing to do with
the olfactory cortex, merely being a conventional term.
Second, this is not mass that prevents macroscopic objects from quantum behavior.
First lasers were quite massive, weighing up to several tons - still, their functioning
was as quantum as that of tiny modern lasers approaching big molecules in size (though
still having macroscopic rather than atomic dimensions). The neutron star is a quantum
object on the astronomical scale, with a mass comparable to that of the Sun. The ability
of a system to exhibit quantum behavior is determined by its connection to the rest
of the world, the way it interacts with it. Thus, one might try to use a laser to
crack nuts, which would make it an entirely classical object. Even elementary particles
behave quite classically in track detectors, where their positions and momenta get
simultaneously determined without too many quantum restrictions. Those who worked
in quantum physics know well that it is the momentum (energy) transfer per mass unit
that can be related to the quantum/classical type of behavior. That is, two systems
that interact in a way assuming their momentum/energy exchange comparable with their
effective mass (or similar threshold parameter, e.g. binding energy) will have to be
described with the formalism of quantum physics, regardless of their size, mass etc.
Try to measure the position and momentum of a billiard ball scattering other balls
on it - you will get a typically quantum picture with otherwise classical bodies.
"But the calcium ions are of small enough mass, and thus their diffusion has a quantum nature."
From the viewpoint of atomic physics, calcium atoms are infinitely heavy (meaning
the physical rather than mathematical infinity), and they are purely classical in diffusion.
"Whereas for classical diffusion there is only one possible path of flow
(for all practical purposes) for the ions, in quantum diffusion the ions
simultaneously flow in many possible paths, creating a substantial ambiguity."
Nonsense! Classical diffusion is a typical example of a statistical process,
which cannot be traced up to the paths of individual molecules. The term
"quantum diffusion" invented by Goswami (or borrowed from other philosophers
like him) is alien to physics; one could try to associate it with penetration
through a potential barrier - in this case, it can hardly be molecules or ions
that are concerned, since ions behave quite classically already in chemical
reactions, and it is their electron shells only that demand quantum description.
Even for a hydrogen ion (proton), its De Brogli wave is too small to be comparable
with the width of the membrane of a brain cell. Also, "flowing in many different
paths", or "ambiguity", has nothing to do with quantum physics, where the evolution
of the states is entirely deterministic.
"Many such quantum interactions occur in possibility at many synaptic sites. This gives
the brain, upon amplification by other neural processes, a macroscopic possibility
structure until one component in that coherent superposition of possibilities corresponds
to a state of macroscopic cognitive meaning that consciousness recognizes."
The existence of random processes at many synaptic sites does not imply that
the macroscopic behavior will be stochastic. Thus the stochastic drift of electrons
in a metal results in a quite deterministic current obeying the Ohm's law, and all
the stochasticity of molecular motion in a rarefied gas is well enough reduced to
the ideal gas equation, which, together with a couple of other as deterministic
equations determines the dynamics of the gas volume (for instance in a pump, or a press).
Inversely, the behavior of the elements of a big system may be highly deterministic -
but their collective motion may exhibit quantum-like peculiarities. Whether such
collective modes exist in the brain is an open question, but this not physics that is concerned.
"Bohm's basic idea is to represent the situation of quantum mechanics with a wave
piloting a particle, an idea he took from de Broglie (19)."
Primitive metaphors of early science. There are neither particles nor waves in
quantum physics (at least as dynamic entities). All we deal with is quantum
states that obey certain dynamic laws. It is a vulgarization to think that,
in a quantum system, the particle-like and wave-like properties are simply
mixed in an eclectic way - a quantum system is qualitatively different from
both classical particles and classical waves.
When quantum mechanics just began its history, it was natural for physicists
to wonder whether the study of a quantum system is different from that of any
other physical system. Today, when the scientists have accumulated enough
experience to make their intuition work with specifically quantum objects,
they do not need to compare quantum experiment with other kinds of experiment.
Quantum physics did not suggest any specific methodology in experimental physics,
and the principles of staging and basic experimental techniques have remained
the same. This is quite natural, since experimentalists can only register macroscopic
events, no matter which kinds of processes underlie them; the only specificity
quantum experiment may have introduced is using an advanced quantum theory
to explain experimental results, so that their relation to the properties of
a microscopic system involved becomes rather indirect.
However, the situation is not as novel as it may seem. For centuries people observed
the motion of the stars and planets across the sky trying to organize these "direct"
measurements, and it required the Copernican revolution to realize that the observable
behavior of celestial bodies should be treated is a manifestation of something we
cannot observe directly and have to theoretically model prior to interpreting.
For a more recent example, one could mention the notion of a field in classical
electrodynamics, with all Faraday's efforts to visualize fields to make them
more acceptable to scientists, and Maxwell's mechanical model of electromagnetism
designed to convince those who could not yet think in the novel way suggested by
his field equations; one could also discover the still living descendants of Maxwell's
demon in modern thermodynamics.
Quantum physics is comparable with the Copernican revolution in that it removed
one more anthropocentric prejudice and made physicists acknowledge the existence
of a vast area of phenomena unlike anything known before. As usual with indirect
measurements, the problem of authenticity of theoretical models used is of primary
importance in quantum experiment. However, this is a matter of physical study rather
than philosophical discussions. Thus, the existence of autoionizing states in atoms
and ions as real rather than virtual objects can be confirmed only by developing
methods of extracting the quantities characterizing such states (e.g. excitation
cross sections) from experimental data (spectra of electron, proton and ion
scattering on atomic targets) [see Godunov et al. (2000), referenced above].
Philosophical idealism is much like anthropocentric models in physics: it cannot
comprehend the idea that what we see is mere reflection of what happens, and one
has to think a little bit to understand one's own observations. To get rid of
idealism in consciousness studies, it is not enough to demonstrate its weakness
and inconsistency - we have to develop a better approach and make efforts to establish
it as a practically useful standard.
Goswami's "theory" of measurement is based on an anthropocentric view of
an ordinary man-in-the-street, since he is not well acquainted with the theoretical
and experimental methods used in science. Trying to inadequately generalize such
a view leads to various artificial "problems", and the attempts to resolve them
with arbitrarily introduced notions can only result in more "paradoxes".
"We need the intermediary of the macrobodies, a macro-measurement apparatus,
to amplify the micro quantum objects before we can observe them."
This is the core of Goswami's misconception. The only way he can imagine microscopic
objects is that of the same big things, but in miniature. A primitive metaphor of
a microscope, just amplifying very small objects to make them visible, without
significantly interfering with them. Goswami cannot imaging an experiment that
would significantly change the state of both the system observed and the observer,
he cannot switch to another paradigm, that of participation rather than contemplation.
"Therefore, any machine, such as the ones called measurement apparatuses
that we use to amplify a quantum phenomenon, itself becomes a possibility wave
(a superposition of macroscopically distinguishable possibilities) when in contact
with micro-quantum possibilities."
Measurement devices do not "amplify" a quantum phenomenon - they are used to make
measurements, that is, produce macroscopic events that may bear the traces of
microscopic processes that are not directly observable. The results of any measurement
certainly have to be somehow explained and practically applied. The relation of
a measurement result to a quantum process may be very indirect, and basically the
same measurement schemes can be re-interpreted to get a deeper insight into what
is going on in a microscopic system.
"Consciousness can collapse the whole conglomerate because it transcends the material universe."
The fact that human observers are a part of the measurement scheme does not mean
that human consciousness has anything to do with the processes studied. One can
account for any macroscopic influence in a microscopic model, using its intrinsic
parameters in a purely scientific way, without any mystics.
In some cases, a measuring device can be described with a state vector (or, rather,
a density matrix). This is a usual approach of the traditional theory of quantum
measurement [e.g. A. J. Ferguson, Angular Correlation Methods in Gamma-Ray
Spectroscopy (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1965)]. More complicated cases can
be covered by a more advanced theory [e.g. M. B. Mensky, The Path Group: Measurements,
Fields, Particles (Moscow: Nauka, 1983)]. However, there is no need to talk about
any "possibilities", or "possibility waves", which are outside physics; the distinction
of "macroscopic and "micro-quantum" possibilities is an example of sheer demonology.
"The state of the quantum machinery expands as a coherent superposition, and all
the classical measurement apparatuses that couple with it also become coherent
superpositions."
This is not true. Usually, the state of the quantum system + measurement device
is a mixed state described with a density matrix, rather than a "coherent
superposition". The form of the density matrix is closely related to the (macroscopic)
scheme of experiment: thus, one would used different expressions for the density
matrix of photons, depending on whether the experimentalist will use linearly
polarized, circularly polarized, or non-polarized light source, or detect
outgoing photons with or without a polarimeter. Yet another density matrix
is to be used when the photon emission is registered together with electron
emission, or in parallel with detecting scattered protons.
"A quantum measurement corresponds to a discontinuous and non-local collapse
of a wave-like state (many possibilities) into a localized particle-like state
(one actuality)."
This is one more example of terminology incompatible with physics. Quantum physics
deals with the dynamics of quantum states and their asymptotic properties at physical
infinity, corresponding to the observable macroscopic picture. There is no need
in the notions like "non-local collapse", invented by poor philosophers to disguise
their insufficient acquaintance with quantum mechanics and inability to comprehend
anything that is not like the ordinary things they see around them. To repeat:
physicists only calculate various parameters of their formal models and relate
them to experimental procedures or industrial processes using special interpretation
schemes, which have been designed to reflect the world as it manifests itself
in certain human activities. If you do not produce a practically applicable
(at least to certain extent) result, you cannot pretend to be a scientist.
An entirely artificial idea of "quantum collapse" does not have any relation
to physical study, only producing a lot of idle talk of a vulgar-philosophical smell.
"Who/what chooses which possibility is manifested in a particular measurement ?
If choice is involved, is consciousness?"
Once you have invented an artificial problem, you get stuck in it forever...
Physical (as well as any other) measurement never deals with any possibilities
and choice - all it does is to produce a value that can be related to the values
calculated in a number of theoretical models, or it can be stored in a bank
of atomic data and used as it is, in physical or industrial applications.
The value obtained in a physical experiment (no matter quantum or not) can
only have sense within a definite physical model, and there may be different
models for the same phenomenon describing its different aspects. There are
no possibilities or probabilities in quantum theory - instead, it works with
intensities, cross sections, rates etc. It is absolutely contrary to the very
idea of science, to assert that some mystical creature interferes with atomic
reactions and determines the value of the differential cross section.
"The quantum equation of the self-referential system of the brain-mind must
continually be modified by the repeated measurement interactions."
In a quantum theory of measurement, one should use the same evolution equation
for the whole system until it would reach its asymptotic state; two separate
measurements (interactions between the system and the observer) can be described
with different equations only if the measurement scheme has changed.
"It itself is described by possibility waves and thus cannot resolve another
object's possibility wave into actuality."
There are no "possibility waves", and no need to "resolve" anything. There
are macroscopically determined boundary conditions, determining the asymptotics
of the wavefunctions. This is how quantum processes get linked to macroscopic
observables. Mathematically this often means averaging over individual paths of reaction.
Conceptually, quantum mechanics is quite like classical mechanics: one cannot
solve the equation of motion for a classical system without boundary conditions;
similarly, one cannot solve the Schrödinger equation without specifying particular
asymptotics, which will be different for different types of reactions.
"However, because of its large mass, we can simultaneously assign both position
and momentum to it, albeit approximately; this is Bohr's correspondence principle.
This property allows us to use a classical measurement apparatus to amplify
the quantum possibilities for us to see and to make a memory of what we see."
We do not see quantum events, albeit "amplified". We observe their macroscopic
effects. A skilful scientist can relate the macroscopically observed picture
to certain microscopic processes, as described by a specific theoretical model.
Such a relation cannot be but approximate, and a disagreement between the model
and experiment may mean either the model inadequacy for that type of experiments,
or insufficient accuracy of experiment, or incorrect processing experimental data
while extracting the values to compare, or any other reason. No specifically quantum
uncertainties are ever considered.
"everybody can simultaneously see the macrobodies."
It is only macroscopic bodies that we see. But this does not hinder observation
of microscopic objects, through the fine details of macroscopic motion.
"Any deviation from this estimate will tell us about quantum interference and thus
about the quantum nature of the probabilities and, thereby, of choice (Woo, 1981)."
It might as well speak of the wrong assumptions in calculating the probabilities.
"There is a difference between an ordinary quantum measurement, such as the measurement
of an electron by a Geiger counter, and the quantum measurements that take place in the brain."
Geiger counter is a classical device measuring the classical events of a charged
particle passing through the volume of the counter and interacting with electromagnetic
fields in a classical way. There are no quantum measurements in the brain as well.
"one thing is certain: consciousness is needed to make actuality out of the possibilities
that the dual quantum system/classical measurement apparatus(es) present."
Quantum measurement does not differ from any other measurement, and it does not deal
with possibilities and actualities - so the necessity of consciousness interfering
in it is not certain, and even false. This is pseudo-philosophy pretending to be
a theory of measurement.
"The classical equation in Bohm's theory is not, strictly speaking, a space-time
equation because the quantum potential depends on the wave function which has no
space-time existence until it is collapsed. [...] without knowing where the particle
ends up, Bohm's method cannot be applied to calculate the particle trajectory."
There are no "collapses" in quantum physics, and the existence of a quantum state
does not imply the necessity of its correspondence to any particles or waves.
Quantum mechanics calculates what is appropriate to it without any "collapses".
If there is no means of determining the trajectory of a particle, that trajectory
is irrelevant to the outcome of the reaction.
"Through sheer sophistry, Bohm and his collaborators avoid dealing with the
fundamental problem of quantum measurement: why only one of the possibilities
become actual in a measurement while all others do not."
Sheer sophistry is to speak about any possibilities in quantum mechanics, and
any problems here are due to ignorance and lack of conscience.
"Like Stapp, we believe that the measurement problem is not solved by Bohm's
interpretation of his mathematics,"
There is no problem to solve. No wonder physicists do not care much for such
fictions, and merely proceed with scientific study, without collapse.
In this subsection, I list a few more example of the frivolous manner Goswami
has to treat science mixed with anything else. Also, I would like to stress that
there is nothing novel in any Goswami's conclusions that still can be translated
into the language of science.
"We find that, as a result of the feedback from this non-linearity, the quantum
possibility waves of a self-referential system gradually become conditioned;
the probability of actualizing formerly experienced states gradually gains
greater weights. (Similar conditioning has been theorized for photons in
a resonant cavity, also, due to the non-linearity of their Schrodinger
equation; Carmichael, 1993.)"
Well, one more nonlinear model that has yet to be interpreted. Why should it be
applicable to consciousness? In a scientific approach, one would try to compare
the properties of the solutions obtained with the empirical evidence, rather
than seek for a mystical background.
Such terms as "possibility waves", "actualizing", "experience", "conditioning"
do not belong to physics. A scientist would try to outline the range of phenomena modeled,
rather than pretend to do physics where there is no trace (and no need) of it.
"This is the effect we see here. In essence, learning increases the likelihood
that, after the completion of measurement, the quantum-mechanical states
of the tangled-hierarchical quantum-system/measurement-apparatus will correspond
to a prior learned state."
In a normal quantum language that could be reformulated as increasing the populations
of certain states in a specially designed nonlinear system. Why, this is a normal
behavior of many quantum and classical systems. For instance, the ground state
of an atom is more populated than excited states in a gas under normal conditions.
Also, in an ensemble of damped harmonic oscillators (e.g. balls in a pit), the less
energetic modes will be more populated.
"When the creative potency of the quantum system is not engaged, when the primary
awareness events are not attended, the secondary-awareness processes of memory-replay
dominate; the tangled hierarchy of the systems of the brain-mind, in effect, becomes
a simple hierarchy of the learned programs -- the representations of past experiences."
One can only shiver at such terms as "creative potency" being applied to quantum
systems... In the normal language, the model is designed so that it becomes linear
asymptotically, with time tending to infinity. Why not? Most quantum systems are
linear at spatial infinity, many scattering problems assume that there are
no post-collision effects.
"But in truth, the solution to the measurement paradox already exists -- namely,
to assert, as the mathematician John von Neumann (1955) originally did, that it
is consciousness that collapses the quantum possibility wave. It is consciousness
that chooses which possibility will manifest in actuality."
Since there is no paradox, there is no need to solve it. It is a trivial fact
that people get anything as a result of their activity - that is, an experimentalist
stages his experiment in a way intended to lead to the result of a definite kind.
This is the only chance for consciousness to influence experimental results.
However, this does mean that people's actions can ever produce anything that would
contradict the objective laws of motion, characterizing material interactions
involved. A physicist that would try to impose his will on a quantum system by merely
thinking of it should be justly treated as mentally insane. There are other ways
to make things behave following conscious will: just invent an apparatus implementing
certain objective logic.
"There is, however, one question that continues to be raised: Is consciousness
absolutely necessary for interpreting quantum mechanics?"
Consciousness is necessary for any interpreting at all, since it is a conscious
being who does the interpreting. However, there is no place for consciousness
in physics, and in quantum mechanics in particular.
"If two people simultaneously make an observation, whose choice counts?"
Yet another imaginary paradox. The result of an experiment does not depend on any
individual consciousness - rather the collective consciousness of the humanity is
embodied in the experimental set-up reproducing certain aspects of the productive
activity of humans; it is this material apparatus that interacts with the quantum
system, and never any transcendental substances.
"In his philosophical writings, Bohm also leaves us with the impression that
reality comes to us via two orders, one implicate or implicit or hidden that
guides the behavior of what is explicate or explicit, the order that we see,
the order that is causal and objective."
This is important: Bohm is no philosopher, and his philosophical writings cannot
be judged by what he has done in physics. Goswami plays hypocrite, trying to present
Bohm's philosophical musings as physics.
"The implicate order is easily seen as the transcendent order of quantum potential
where ontologically, the quantum wave functions or possibility waves reside."
A climax of absurdity. No word in this sentence has any relation to physics,
or any other science.
"In the human dimension, the idealist interpretation is being used to construct
a new science within consciousness that can treat not only the material world,
but also our internal mental world, for example, a theory of creativity (Goswami, 1998)."
There can be no idealist science: any form of idealism implies denial of any cognition
at all, since idealism admits the existence of entities that cannot be comprehended.
The explanations idealism may give all reduce to one: this comes out of consciousness
(idea, god, ...) as an ultimate source of anything, and we cannot know what
"consciousness" is.
There can be no science trapped within consciousness, and no consciousness where
science is trapped.
Finding no science in Goswami's writings, one might fancy that some original philosophy
could be detected there. However, at a closer investigation, one finds no philosophy,
and no originality. Throughout his article, Goswami insists that he has invented a new
"ontology" of consciousness:
"I (Goswami, 1989, 1990, 1993) have shown that if one understands consciousness as
the ground of being (I call this ontology monistic idealism), then all objections
find simple satisfying answers, as we will see below."
From this declaration, one might expect to discover a sort of idealism marked with
a strong integrative tendency. However, the history of philosophy already knows such
attempts, and the available choices are minimal: either subjective idealism, which
claims individual consciousness be the origin of all things, or objective idealism,
inventing an abstraction of consciousness developing on its own, with individual
consciousness being a partial manifestation of it.
Consistent (monistic) subjective idealism is known as solipsism, the idea that nothing
exists at all except the advocator of this idea; there is no use to talk to such a person,
since he/she cannot adequately perceive the world and other people, which is a medical
case. Goswami seems to feel that and deliberately dissociates himself from subjective
idealism: "...barring solipsism..."
As for objective idealism, we know about one comprehensive monistic system following
this approach, that of Hegel. That was the summit of philosophical idealism, and nobody
could develop anything as fundamental afterwards. Hegel's great attempt has explicitly
shown that consistent objective idealism transforms into its opposite: dialectical
materialism, Marxism was born as a logical conclusion of Hegel's system.
The only possibility to develop idealism after Hegel was to deny any consistency at all,
and philosophical monism in particular. This logically led to eclecticism and dualism
of all the philosophies after Hegel and Marx. Goswami could only provide yet another
example. Though the very desire to adhere to the main principle of any philosophy,
that of the unity of the world, is remarkable, reflecting an objective tendency
existing in the human culture of today, Goswami fails to suggest anything that would
deserve the name of philosophy. His writing eclectically mix ideas that are incompatible
with each other, contradicting his pretence to create a new philosophy of consciousness.
Insufficient philosophical education often prevents people from clear realization of what
philosophy is for and how it differs from other cultural phenomena. A popular novelist
may be said to develop some philosophical ideas, or study human psychology etc.; such
statements should be considered as metaphors. Many eminent philosophers (including K. Marx)
tried hard to prove that philosophy is science, which did philosophy an ill turn, robbing
it from its specificity and demonstrating its complete inability to solve problems that are
not philosophical in character.
To justify his choice of "monistic idealism" as the only true philosophy of consciousness,
Goswami has to demonstrate that any other approach would encounter severe difficulties
that only his idealism could overcome. However, to do that, he chooses (either deliberately
or due to poor knowledge of philosophy) the most primitive kinds of philosophy, avoiding
any heavy-weight opponents.
"material realist view (the ontology that everything arises from matter and its correlates,
energy and fields)."
"Matter" in the narrow sense (mass, energy, fields) is mixed with the philosophical
category of "Matter". Hence reduction of materialism to primitive mechanistic views.
This is the only kind of materialism any idealist can fight with: consistent (dialectical)
materialism is a much stronger opponent, and idealists prefer to never mention it. The very
wording like "material realist" instead of "materialist" is a concession to idealism;
however, Goswami cannot consistently keep within idealism too, as will be shown below.
"Material realists assume that these mental properties emerge as higher order functions
of brain-matter--mind is the software function of brain hardware."
"Material realism" = vulgar materialism, the only kind of materialism Goswami knows about.
In dialectical materialism, "mental properties" do not "emerge" as any brain functions;
rather, consciousness is a form of the social development, which is quite objective
and always embodied in material things.
"And if consciousness can collapse the quantum wave, can such a consciousness be made
of matter, be an epiphenomenon of matter?"
From Encyclopedic Dictionary of Philosophy (Moscow, 1983):
That is, Goswami can only fight the ghosts!
"Who/what chooses which possibility is manifested in a particular measurement ?
If choice is involved, is consciousness?"
There is no need to choose. Things just happen, and we observe them. If we are clever
enough, we can make things happen sometimes, though rarely in the way we would like
them to happen...
"in material realist cognitive science, it is not easy to formulate a paradox-free
distinction between the unconscious and conscious that also agrees with experimental data"
First, the identification of natural science materialism with cognitive science
is inadmissible. Second, the distinction between consciousness and the unconscious
does not introduce anything special into materialist philosophy, since both are
the aspects of material motion. Finally, philosophy does not deal with experimental
data, and science cannot be materialistic or otherwise.
Since any questions can only be formulated from a definite position, an improperly
chosen standpoint is bound to lead to ill-formulated questions and illusory problems.
That is, Goswami's philosophy is based on the fake premises, the "necessity" to solve
problems that do not exist.
"experience consists of a perceived split of the world into one part (the subject,
which may sometimes be implicit) that experiences the other part (object) as separate
from it. How does the one world of matter separate into two, subject and object?"
Experience does not "consist" of the "perceived split" or anything like that. It just
reflects the world as it is in certain kinds of human activity. There is no separation
of the world into object and subject - these are the two sides of the same material
process, activity. Any opposition of the object and the subject can only be relative:
in any conscious activity the subject is nothing but a specific object (due to people's
communication, and self-communication in particular), and both the object and the subject
become merged in the product of activity. It is the inability of some philosophers
to comprehend the mutual transformation of the subject and object into each other,
that leads to any "problems" like that.
The world does not "separate into two", it remains the same all the time, merely
exhibiting different facets of its hierarchy in different situations. The integrity
of the world implies that the distinction of the object and the subject can only
be relative, and there is no sense in trying to ponder much over an abstract dichotomy.
The very wording is a tribute to subjective idealism, since Goswami cannot imagine
anything beyond his own experience, and hence has no intention to explore the world,
being content with superficial observations.
"But how do we explain this oneness, the binding problem?"
There is no problem at all. Any coordination of internal processes in any system
arises from the its involvement in a higher-level process occurring between the system
and its environment. Human experience is an example of such an integrating process.
For another example, take a radio set that integrates many components serving the same
goal: to produce sound from high-frequency electromagnetic waves.
"there is commonality in the intentionality of our experience, there is also undoubtedly
a subjective quale. How can a subjective quale be explained from a science which is
avowedly purely objective?"
Once you have opposed the subject to the object, you have to stick in unresolvable problems.
As soon as you consider conscious activity as transformation of the object into the subject
and back, and the products of activity as a synthesis of the object and the subject, there
is no problem at all: science deals with products, and hence both objectivity and subjectivity
incorporated in them. The "pure objectivity" of science is a myth, as well as its incapability
to "transcend" the barrier between the mind and the world - there is no barrier, nothing
to transcend. Also, science does not explain anything, it only suggests models.
"The implicit or explicit subject of our local experiences is a local, personal I
that we call the ego. But the implicit subject of the non-local experience is neither
local nor personal; it is non-local and transpersonal. This two-level self-identity
(Maslow, 1968; Assagioli, 1976) connected to experiences needs an explanation."
An artificial construction does not need any explanation. There are no local experiences
at all. The very idea of experience implies the unity of "inside" and "outside",
a projection of global motion onto a part of it. Since the subject is a social phenomenon,
it would be incorrect to speak of its localization in the physical space-time: it can
only be localized, to certain extent, in its own configuration space of a quite
different kind.
Different levels of the subject have been long since introduced in philosophy and
psychology. That a social group may function as a collective subject is a trivial
observation - however, there is no need to consider such collective forms
of consciousness as something mystical and inaccessible to regular scientific study.
"The material realist ontology assumes that all causation is upward; causal potency,
in this view, ultimately rests with the reductive elementary particles of matter
and their interactions."
Primitive materialism may insist on the absoluteness of causation. However, this is
not so with dialectical materialism, which admits that the very distinction of
the cause and its effect can only be relative due to their mutual penetration
and transformation into each other. To formulate the problem like that is to get
trapped in the logical loop of the hen and the egg.
"Yet, we experience real freedom when we are creative, when we are compassionate,
when we make moral decisions. This implies downward causation--causal potency
that originates with us, whatever us is. This is a very difficult question
for material-realist science."
This is no question at all. Why producing any event by humans should drastically
differ from one thing influencing the motion of another? Humans are as material
as any other thing, and there is no difference in the type of causation. Of course,
if one admits a priori, as Goswami does, that consciousness is something unrelated
to matter, this false assumption may raise numerous problems; in that context,
ascribing such imaginary feature like "downward causation" (whatever it means)
to consciousness is an entirely arbitrary decision.
Different levels of material motion have their specific form of causation, and
freedom is one such form characteristic of the social form of motion. There is
no opposition of freedom to other forms of causation, and no reason why it should
be called "downward". On the lower levels, higher-level causation will produce
nonlinearity of a definite type, such as dependence of the system's dynamics
on its integral characteristics, constraints, boundary conditions etc.; however,
this does not add anything unusual to causality as such.
"Last but not least, the question of the mental as opposed to the physical
aspect of an experience:"
An entirely artificial opposition.
"Experiences consist of intentionality toward an object, but the physical object
is not the only object. There is also a mental object in practically every event
of conscious experience. A simple example is when I see a rose I also concomitantly
experience some such thought as: I see a rose. And I experience this thought not
in the ordinary, public physical space of the rose but in a private, mental space
that we call awareness. Can mental objects arise from the purely physical?"
This paragraph contains a whole bunch of artificial problems arising from a number
of arbitrary assumptions. First, the word "intentionality" is used in a rather
frivolous manner that may cause confusion in an inexperienced reader. Second,
the introduction of a "mental object" is too abrupt, so that one cannot tell
what is meant by the term and assess the validity of the rest of the sentence.
Further, an arbitrary distinction of the "physical" and "mental" spaces is most
problematic, and hence the question of "mental objects" arising from "purely
physical" (why should they be "pure"?) hangs in vacuum without any justification.
Well, we can be aware of ourselves, and there is no problem in the materialistic
approach: since consciousness is an aspect of material motion, one can experience
one's conscious activity as well any other object. The important specification
added by dialectical materialism is that any thing has to be made an object
before it comes to experience, and hence it must be a product (this is the exact
sense of any "intentionality"); the same holds for one's consciousness: it cannot
be consciously experienced until it becomes embodied in some products of human
activity. This is the only solid basis for studying self-consciousness.
It should be noted that the concomitance of one's being aware of one's perceptions
with the perceptions themselves requires a more careful attitude. Self-perception
is a specific activity, and its ability to proceed in parallel with some other
activities (e.g. perception of a rose) is determined by numerous circumstances
to be specially discussed. Normally, seeing a rose, we do not think
about our seeing it, and it requires an attention shift, to become aware
of looking at a rose, which would immediately stop seeing a rose, while still
looking at it. Under certain conditions, switching activities may become recurrent,
resulting in an overall coexistence of two conscious impressions - just like two
threads in a personal computer under Windows coexist through system resources
being repeatedly allocated to either one process or another. With consciousness,
this not the only mechanism, and there may be many others - however, there is
no need to invent artificial problems around that.
As I already said elsewhere, idealism can never be consistent - otherwise it
becomes indistinguishable from materialism, translated into a different terminology.
If one does not admit something existing on itself as the only source of both
consciousness and its contents, one has to admit that there is something else
that cannot be related to this source, and hence come to dualism. If a single
origin of all things is assumed, it should be called matter rather than idea,
spirit, mind, consciousness etc., since there is no distinction yet that could
make such a universal origin resemble consciousness, and one still has to derive
consciousness from it.
Therefore, one could expect that the idealistic monism Goswami puts forth is
in fact sheer declaration, without any real monism being developed. Indeed,
this is what we find in Goswami's texts; even worse, there are all reasons
to regard them as a dualistic approach, a variety of psychophysical parallelism.
Goswami has never been a philosopher enough to become aware of that.
"If transcendent consciousness is always looking and collapsing"
Looking at what? The very form of the phrase assumes that there is something
to look at and something to look.
"The solution is to realize that consciousness collapses the possibility wave
only in the presence of an immanent observer."
First, Goswami declares that everything comes from consciousness, and there
is nothing else, and then he needs an observer to assist it in collapse...
"Notice how, in this description, dualism is avoided because ultimately there
is oneness (the division is only an appearance), allowing subjects and objects to be treated on the same footing."
That is, there is "oneness" and there is its apparent division - appearance to whom?
"The subject has downward causation that comes from its freedom of choice
to collapse actuality from possibility, creating manifestation."
The opposition of the object and the subject, is implicitly built into Goswami's
approach, and there is no indication to how they could be attributed to the same
origin. Other oppositions (actuality and possibility, motion and its manifestation)
do not show any tendency to become synthesized too.
"The two paradoxes, self-reference and quantum measurement, find simultaneous
resolution under the idealist ontology if we posit additionally that the brain
has quantum machinery in addition to the neuronal machinery that act as amplifying
measurement apparatuses for the quantum."
Goswami declares that everything comes from consciousness - and, all of a sudden,
he feels the necessity of attaching consciousness to the brain and inventing some
machinery behind it. Why there should be any brain, if a consistently idealistic
monism is to be advocated?
"Dualists, to their credit, have always insisted that mind and brain are fundamentally
different (Eccles, 1994). Their legitimate claim..."
To what extent is it legitimate? Anyway, Goswami is likely to admit the difference.
"Thus it makes more sense to hypothesize that consciousness writes
the purposive mental programs in the brain."
That is, there is the brain (whose brain?), and something called consciousness
that works as a programmer for the brain. If consciousness is a social phenomenon,
there is no problem: the society moulds the thoughts of its members. However,
if consciousness is fancied to have no material grounds, this becomes sheer dualism.
"When we write software for our personal computer, we employ our mental picture
of what we want to do in the programming. Similarly, consciousness must use a
mental body to create the mental software of the brain."
The perfect picture of consciousness as a homunculus. In fact, when we write
computer programs, we are driven by a social necessity (embodied in the objective
process of social development), and any "mental pictures" are mere reflection
of that necessity in a different substrate. There is no need to invent any
immaterial "mental bodies".
"this subtle substance does not interact with the material substance in any direct way;"
Why? No argument for that, except the a priori assumption that it must be "subtle"
and mystical. The only explanation: the dualism of "two substances" is a cornerstone
of Goswami's teaching.
"we are not reviving Cartesian interaction dualism."
This is exactly what Goswami does! Two substances that do not interact, except
in one specific organ of the human body... - this is a replica of Descartes.
"And yet the subtle substances can communicate with the physical substance through
the intermediary of consciousness."
Which is nobody knows what... The only difference from Descartes is in that the latter
linked the mind to the body through a material organ, the pineal gland, while Goswami
tries to picture an immaterial link without much bothering about the feasibility
of such linking.
"Psychophysical parallelism avoids the problem of interaction between the two different
substrata, but no mechanism is given for the parallelism to come about. The current model,
with two separate substances that are connected via consciousness which simultaneously
collapse parallel actualities in both bodies, gives a mechanism for psychophysical parallelism."
Well, to join two opposites one has to introduce something that would implement
the junction. However, Goswami never tells how consciousness is to do that -
mere declarations are not enough. The very opposition of the "two substances"
remains absolute throughout Goswami's writings.
"Consciousness ascribes mental meaning to the image with the help of mental
states of the mental body"
One homunculus riding another.
"When consciousness recognizes a learned state in its quantum possibilities
of the physical brain, it also recognizes and chooses the correlated mental state."
Once again: "consciousness recognizes", "consciousness chooses". Why not simply
say that a person can consciously choose or recognize? Anyway, Goswami cannot
tell more about what consciousness is and how it does all that.
"Note that the new hypothesis is postulating a new psychophysical parallelism,
but firmly within a monistic idealist ontology."
Lack of elementary conscience: "I am a dualist, but within monistic idealism". No comment.
"only then, when consciousness recognizes and chooses a correlated pair of states
of the physical brain and the mental body, is a meaningful representation made."
Three independent entities: the brain, "mental body" and "consciousness" - this really
transcends dualism!
Just like Goswami fails to develop his "monistic idealism" as monism, he fails to be
consistent enough in idealism itself. Primitive mechanistic materialism shows from
every hole of his eclectically ragged approach.
"If two people simultaneously make an observation, whose choice counts (a slight
variant of this paradox is sometimes called the paradox of Wigner's friend)?
Neither's counts. Consciousness is one, unitive (see also, Blood, 1993).
Our separateness is only an apparent one (see later)."
Why then should we call it consciousness? Why not call it matter and say that
everything comes up from matter rather than consciousness?
"The stimulus is processed by the sensory apparatus and presented to the dual
quantum system/classical measurement apparatus."
If everything comes from consciousness, why anything should be presented
to anything else? There is no need to talk of any "quantum measurement" at all.
"the brain has quantum machinery in addition to the neuronal machinery that
act as amplifying measurement apparatuses for the quantum."
An attempt to identify "the quantum" with "the ideal" fails, since the existence
of the (material) "neuronal machinery" is admitted anyway.
"all objects are quantum objects; therefore, a classical measurement apparatus
can never really measure a quantum object. It itself is described by
possibility waves and thus cannot resolve another object's possibility wave
into actuality."
NB: objects. Also, "possibilities" and "actualities" look quite objective
in this context.
"Before learning, the possibility pool from which consciousness chooses its
states spans the mental states common to all people at all places at all times."
If everything arises from consciousness, why should there be any other people
and other times? And what consciousness would choose?
"Fairly early in our physical development, learning accumulates and conditioned
response patterns begin to dominate the brain-mind's behavior,"
That is, there is physical development, learning etc. When an object develops
according to an objective law that can be expressed with an equation
(quantum or not), where is idealism?
"Experiences lead to learning, one aspect of which is developmental changes
in the brain-mind's classical substructure"
What learning, if everything comes from the mind? Why should an idealist
care for any material traces of experience?
"At this stage, the creative uncertainty as to who the chooser is
of a conscious experience involving the quantum self diminishes. Then we begin
to identify with a separate, individual self, the ego, that perceives apparent
continuity in the form of a stream of consciousness, that thinks it chooses
on the basis of its past experiences, that presumably has free will."
That is, there are different people, with their individual consciousness,
and will. And further:
"Suppose you have several people experience the sight, sound, and touch
of a red car with its engine running."
Once again: the subject ("you") and the object. Any attempt to apply to science
results in that distinction.
"Any deviation from this estimate will tell us about quantum interference and
thus about the quantum nature of the probabilities and, thereby, of choice (Woo, 1981)."
What this entirely objective approach has to do with the absolute idealism proclaimed?
"However, there are some uncertainties in doing such an experiment ; for example,
how do we guarantee that a subject retains the dichotomy (i.e., doesn't make
a choice) between seeing the first word and the second ? In fact, if the idealist
interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, then each sight-recognition
collapses the ambiguity of the stimulus."
What has all that to do with idealism? This is an arbitrary assumption in
an abstract pseudo-physical model.
"But the difference is that in the former case, as soon as the wave function
is collapsed by measurement, the objects become uncorrelated; but in the case
of the correlated brains, consciousness maintains the correlation over
the one-hundred light flashes that are needed to get the average evoked potential."
The style of this description does not imply any idealism. If there is only one
consciousness, how does it come to different subjects?
"However, the new model is different from the old psychophysical parallelism
in the sense that experience modifies both bodies as states of the two bodies
become correlated by experience."
First declaring that consciousness does that, Goswami would toss the task
to "experience", whatever it means.
"When consciousness recognizes a learned state in its quantum possibilities
of the physical brain, it also recognizes and chooses the correlated mental state."
Yet another turn: "consciousness recognizes", "consciousness chooses". This
implies that consciousness is objective too, and we can describe it in
a language like that.
"a subject sees enough to act on the basis of it, but is not conscious of the seeing"
One more confirmation that there is something beyond consciousness.
"This question, I think, can be answered with an even more decisive and objective
experiment that can discern between classical and quantum models of the mind."
Fine! A monistic idealist believes in an "objective experiment" that would tell the truth.
Since most of Goswami's philosophy is sheer declarations, there is no attempt
to logically link one idea to another. Quite naturally, such an approach can hardly
lead one to any knowledge, and hence Goswami's sympathy towards anything transcendental,
mystical, extra-sensory, or super-natural.
"Who/what chooses which possibility is manifested in a particular measurement ?
If choice is involved, is consciousness? And if consciousness can collapse
the quantum wave, can such a consciousness be made of matter, be
an epiphenomenon of matter?"
No logic. Why should the presence of choice hint to consciousness? Why should
choice mean any "collapse"? Why should one ask whether consciousness is material
or not? Why should any "epiphenomenon of matter" be "made of matter"?
"Consciousness can collapse the whole conglomerate because it transcends the material universe."
An empty "because": one incomprehensible thing is arbitrarily said to follow
from the another. Goswami does not explicate neither "collapse" nor "transcendence",
and even less "consciousness".
Once an idea has nothing to do with reality, one has to invent some "transcensus",
to connect it to reality. But once there is a connection, there is no need
to distinguish one "universe" from another, since they are parts of the same thing.
with no transcendentality.
"There is now data showing unconscious perception -- a subject sees enough
to act on the basis of it, but is not conscious of the seeing. Unconscious processing
is also acknowledged as part of the creative process (Wallas, 1926), and much evidence
exists in favor of it (Goswami, 1999)"
The importance of the unconscious for creativity is a banality. Moreover, it is
a trivial fact that any human activity at all implies both conscious and unconscious
levels. Materialist science has long since incorporated the idea of the unconscious
(Vygotsky, Leontiev), not only using it to explain the observable behavior, but also
to provide a conceptual basis for personal development, education, etc.
The distinction between the conscious and the unconscious is as relative as
the distinction between the object and the subject, or the inner and the outer.
There is no problem to distinguish between consciousness and the unconscious -
rather, the problem is to show how they transform into each other.
"So, if a tree falls in the forest, is there a sound if nobody is there to hear it?
Centuries ago, Bishop Berkeley said that God is always in the quad, in
the forest, to hear the sound, so the sound is there. But not so with quantum measurement."
What's the difference? Why some imaginary being ("god") cannot be imagined the way
as to make it present in any quantum state as well as in any spatial position
simultaneously? This won't go along well with physics, but nobody expects mystical
thinking to be compatible with science.
"The measurement is tangled-hierarchical and produces self-reference. An example
of a tangled hierarchy is the self- referential sentence, I am a liar.
Neither the subject nor the predicate of the sentence is the top-level, each
qualifies the other (Hofstadter, 1980). This tangled hierarchy causes the self-reference
of the sentence (for further details, see Goswami, 1993)."
Self-referencing is a fundamental feature of every thought, and it must also
be considered as the basis of any development in the material world, since it
is unique, and hence any interaction in the world is the world's interaction
with itself (self-reflection, self-motion, self-action, self-production etc.).
Within the binary logic, this reflexivity cannot be adequately addressed, which
demands extending our ideas of logic. However, there is no need to admit that
there should be something mystical about it. Once you connect consciousness
to activity, you will readily observe that it is the schemes of activities that
get reflected in logical figures, so that different activities may imply different
logic.
"Objects have upward causation by virtue of the laws of quantum possibility dynamics
that they follow."
Causation has nothing to do with science, including quantum physics. In developing
a scientific theory, one may use certain methodological principles (which are
philosophy rather than science); however, science can never answer philosophical
questions, including that of causation.
"the simultaneous co-arising of the choosing subject and the experienced object
defines the collapse"
This is collapse of logic. The subject and the object do exist through each other,
and get determined through each other, but why should this be called "collapse"?
In dialectical philosophy, any distinction evolves from original syncretism,
and then it has to be "dissolved" on a higher-level formation combining the features
of the both opposites. In human activity, this general law manifests itself as
the contribution of both the subject of the activity and objects involved in it
into the formation of the product of activity (e.g. the results of an experiment).
"One of the principal aspects of quantum functionalism is non-locality."
What Goswami means under non-locality has never been explained. There are different
types of non-locality in science, and it is not evident whether it is justified
to borrow the term in philosophy.
"only then, when consciousness recognizes and chooses a correlated pair of states
of the physical brain and the mental body, is a meaningful representation made."
The word "consciousness" is used for "god", "supreme power", "fate" etc.: when Goswami
does not know something, he just says that it is consciousness that does it. This is
the simplest explanation one could ever invent.
"This is the reason that the ontology used here, monistic idealism, has also been
termed perennial philosophy."
This is not a "perennial philosophy" - this is a long-lived delusion, not to say lie,
which is supported by certain social layers, being bound to get annihilated with them.
Perennial ignorance would be a more appropriate name.
Since Goswami's approach is neither science nor philosophy, and the only art that
may have any relation to it is the art of artifice, one can hardly expect to learn
anything new about consciousness from it, that would not be present elsewhere in
the literature, in a more coherent form.
Goswami's acquaintance with psychology and related studies is as superficial as his
knowledge of physics. In combination with his being trapped in artificial problems
of his own design, this leads to a rather vague statements about commonly discussed
psychological phenomena.
"Experiences lead to learning"
Well, everyone should learn from one's experiences; a conscious person also learns
from the experiences of the others. However, Goswami has only learned a variety
of behaviorism that never comes beyond primitive conditioning.
"A well-known characteristic of learning is that learning a performance reinforces
the probability of the same subsequent performance."
This is partially so with conditioning in animals. Those humans who have developed
a little consciousness exhibit an entirely different behavioral pattern: well learned
performance gets reduced, interiorized, and it is unlikely to often re-appear
as conscious action.
"we can be consciously aware at any given instant of only one particular thing."
This is not so. We are aware of myriads of things at any given instant, however,
these things are not equal for consciousness. Consciousness is hierarchical, and
things can participate in its formation differently. One cannot draw a boundary
between what we are aware about and unawareness.
Any activity implies that some things are in the focus of awareness, and some other
occupy its periphery. Thus, speech is normally sequential, and one cannot report
of one's feelings in words otherwise than one by one, which may make some people
believe that feelings are sequential on themselves. Luckily, there are other ways
of expressions (e.g. the arts) that disclose the hierarchical nature of our
"internal" life.
"In the quantum functionalist scenario there is only one collapse at a given time,
and that defines the event in awareness."
There are cases of split awareness, well described in the literature. Concurrence
of a few motives with the subsequent prioritizing them is a common mechanism
of switching between different activities. Further, Goswami himself admits that
awareness is not flat: "we can be peripherally aware of several things in awareness
at the same time." However, one should take care while speaking of time: simultaneity
is relative already in physics; the more so with human beings.
"Ordinary perception consists of the collapse of a possibility wave by consciousness
(via recognition and choice) in the presence of awareness."
Consciousness and awareness are not separate in ordinary perception, not only
present in it, but constituting one of the necessary components.
"But in unconscious (subliminal) perception,"
The subliminal may well be conscious (e.g. in intuition), and the unconscious
may be not subliminal (e.g. the super-conscious, the zone of imminent development
suggested by the society).
"Apparently, choice, and therefore quantum collapse, is a concomitant of conscious
experience but not of unconscious perception. It is our consciousness that chooses -
we choose, therefore we are - but we choose only when awareness is present."
This is entirely wrong. There may be unconscious choice - and in most situations
this is the case. Also, identifying consciousness with choice would mean that
humans are nothing but animals, since the animals choose too. Finally, consciousness
does not reduce to awareness, and the unconscious to the lack of it. A cat may well
be aware of the presence of a mouse - and behave adequately - which would not make
it conscious, however.
"The implicit or explicit subject of our local experiences is a local, personal
I that we call the ego. But the implicit subject of the non-local experience
is neither local nor personal; it is non-local and transpersonal. This two-level
self-identity (Maslow, 1968; Assagioli, 1976) connected to experiences needs
an explanation."
The arbitrary opposition of "local" and "non-local" experience leads to imaginary
problems. Artificial constructions do not need any explanation.
With consciousness, there is no locality at all. The very idea of experience implies
the unity of "inside" and "outside", a projection of global motion onto a part of it.
Since the subject is a social phenomenon, it would be incorrect to speak of its
localization in the physical space-time (which is the only kind of locality
Goswami is aware about); well, one could approximately localize the subject
in the Solar system, until humans overcome their being confined within it -
even that would be a strain in describing consciousness. To certain extent,
the subject can be localized in its own configuration space, quite different
from physical space-time.
"attribute properties of consciousness -- experience and choice -- to the mind."
Conscious experience and conscious choice are specific activities, and not mere
properties of something poorly defined; rather, consciousness could be said to
be their specific "property", distinguishing them from animal awareness and choice.
Even less probably one would wish to attribute experience and choice to the mind
as its properties - thought there may be study of the relations between the mind
and such psychological phenomena as affects and will. And, of course, experience
and choice do not exhaust all the cases of conscious behavior.
"Mind, on the other hand, is program-like--it is driven not only by causes
but also by purpose."
A whole armful of nonsense! During over 30 years of computer programming, I never met
a program that would be "driven" either by "causes", or by any "purpose" -
and I doubt anybody could show me a program like that. Programs are composed
(by humans or other programs), compiled (according to certain directions)
and executed by a processor - that's all. Purpose has nothing to do with
programming, it may only concern their usage.
Mind is not "driven" by anything neither, if just serves human activity. Within
a particular action, a relatively short sequence of operations may be planned
in a "program-like" manner - however, this not the usual way human behave.
That is why all sorts of external tools (e.g. computer programs like Lotus
Organizer, Microsoft Project etc.) have to be used when there is a rigid
scenario to follow. In certain kinds of society, people may become reduced
to machines, with special techniques designed to keep them below the level
of creativity and consciousness. Work around the clock for mere survival
is a quick way to an animal state.
"Out of the self-referential measurement itself simultaneously arise a subject --
which I call the quantum self -- that measures, that chooses, that observes,
and object(s) that are observed."
The subject does not arise from any measurement, it merely performs
measurements, when needed. It is the history of natural development that eventually
leads to the formation of subjectivity (and hence objectivity, as its complement).
By the way, why the subject should "arise" from quantum measurement only, and not
from mechanical, electrical, thermodynamic or other measurement?
"But then where does the purposiveness of mind come from ? Logic dictates that
only consciousness can inject purposiveness in the world."
There is no need to "inject purposiveness in the world", since there already
are people who consciously act and follow their purposes. Studying how they
differ from consciousness-devoid creatures will provide the clues to what
consciousness is and how it develops with the world and human society as its part.
"Thus it makes more sense to hypothesize that consciousness writes the
purposive mental programs in the brain."
This makes no sense at all. As for programming the brain, consciousness has
little to do here, since economy and society do that better. Anyway, nothing
gets "written" in the brain - there are other mechanisms, such as teaching,
education, social conditioning etc.
"So who teaches the human biocomputer, the physical brain, its representations?
Well, consciousness does--with the help of the states of the mental body."
To translate: something we know nothing about. Goswami cannot think of the other
people as real teachers, and he invents an abstract "consciousness" (= "god")
to do that. Maybe, while working as a teacher, Goswami could not teach anything
to anybody, so that his denial of people's ability to teach is due to that disappointment?
"An unlearned stimulus produces an image in the physical brain in the form
of possibilities of the quantum brain, but these possible images have no mental meaning."
The "possibilities of the quantum brain" have no meaning at all. The human brain
has developed as a device to relay a number of external stimuli and control the
human body, and this all it can do on itself. Outside a social context, there
can be no experience, meaning, or consciousness.
"In the reciprocal process of imagination, a physical brain-mind representation
is made of subtle mental states."
Thus! A physical representation is made of ideas. In a normal language, one would
simply say that people's imagination is accompanied with changes in the brain state
(which is trivial), and the things imagined may be not directly related to anything
the person perceives; the latter does not mean that they come from something mystical.
"Mental states" do not need to be "subtle" - they are material states of a material
system, the society.
"With learning, certain responses gradually gain greater weight over others, responses
that we call personal."
That is, an amoeba's light avoidance reflex reveals the amoeba's personality! A good
company for Goswami and his ilk!
Cognitive science (which is, in fact, no science at all) is the only approach
to consciousness study known to Goswami, and all his ideas are firmly rooted in that
school, ascending to late F. I. Gall and his "science" of guessing the character and
talents of a person by the form of the cranium. In the 70s of the XIX century,
the idea of the localization of various higher functions in the brain has been
extensively developed by a number of researchers (like P. Broca, or C. Wernike),
and one could also mention the detailed maps by K. Kleist (1934). In the second
half of the XX century, speculations around the functional asymmetry of the brain
were popular, and there were attempts to "localize", for instance, logic in the
left, and artistic gifts in the right hemisphere. Combined with computer modeling,
such views gave birth to cognitive science, an activity of collecting facts and
notions of different sciences (physics, biochemistry, neurophysiology, psychology,
artificial intelligence, etc.) and reinterpreting them in the phrenologist way.
The very title of one of the sections of Goswami's article, "The Possibility
of Quantum Interference in the Brain-Mind", admits that the mind is entirely
linked to the brain. Thus Goswami starts at a wrong place, and moves in
a wrong direction.
"An experience usually involves several brain areas"
This is wrong. Experience has nothing to do with the brain, it is a kind of activity
that is merely accompanied with certain cerebral processes, which might as well be
reproduced in another device, made using a different technology.
"Experiences lead to learning, one aspect of which is developmental changes in
the brain-mind's classical substructure - the memories and representations of experience."
This multiply quoted sentence is, in addition to all the other conceptual distortions,
also an example of the implicit identification of the mind with the brain. Human memory
is entirely different from mere imprinting external stimuli in cerebral structures,
since it is based on cultural mediation, self-communicating via the other people and
the products of human activity.
"the oneness of conscious experience is hard to debate. But how do we explain this
oneness, the binding problem?"
There is no problem at all. Any coordination of internal processes in any system
arises from the its involvement in a higher-level process occurring between the system
and its environment. Experience is an example of such an integrating process.
Any attempt to confine experience in the skull is bound to produce fictitious
problems like that.
"Suppose also that you have available to you the right combination of some super
technology and high-power mathematics so that you are able to make a complete
description of the neuronal states of the brains of your subjects, even one for
your own brain, upon experiencing the car. Except for minor differences, you would
expect the neuronal configurations of all the brains, including yours, to be identical."
This is nonsense. One does not need to have identical systems to achieve the same
functioning. For instance, I can view the same Web page on an Intel-based PC,
on a Macintosh, on a SUN workstation, or any other computer, without significant
differences in the apparent performance. Physiological systems are no exception.
It is the way of the different systems' participation in a common process that
determines the way they reflect each other's individuality.
"And yet, you know that in the case of your brain, something is left out, something
that the objective neuronal configurations cannot possibly describe, and that is your
subjective experience as observer."
Why? The subjective experience can well be included in the description, this is
an ordinary instance of self-reflection. Once again, it is the confinement
of consciousness to the brain that would cause conceptual difficulties.
"You might say that this comprises something special in the neuronal configuration
of your observer brain compared to all the observed brains."
In no way. Any manifestation of human individuality would only mean that your role
in the common activity is different, and hence requires a different physiology
to effectuate it. Change one's social position, and you will find a different
personality, and rearranged functioning of the brain.
"But then you would be admitting (barring solipsism) that your conscious experience
of your brain state changes your supposedly objective brain state."
If Goswami had ever known physics better, he would have been well acquainted with
the idea of self-consistency widely used to describe many-body systems. The same
approach could be used to derive models of conscious activity, in particular
employing some methods of quantum mechanics.
Here, Goswami becomes trapped in his inability to distinguish a model from
the object modeled. There have never been a person directly perceiving the state
of his own brain, as well as there can be no self-awareness that would not been
mediated by interaction with external bodies, products of human activity.
In self-reflection, any simultaneity can only be an abstraction of a very
limited applicability.
"This is the paradox of self-reference back again"
Where is the paradox? Any system with feedback can show tricks like that.
"Yet the subject consciousness of the experience (the subject pole with the qualia
of experience) arises co-dependently and tangled-hierarchically with the chosen
brain-state (the object pole)"
Here, the brain state is inappropriately called the object pole, while, in reality,
it is productive activity and communication with other people that constitute
the substrate of any subjectivity.
"Non-local consciousness collapsing correlated quantum wave functions at different
brain areas, simultaneously giving rise to an event of felt experience, is the simplest
answer to the binding problem."
As soon as you abandon a perverted idea of localization of mental functions in
the brain, there is no problem, and no need to invent fictitious answers. Once again,
poor acquaintance with physics results in lack of understanding of that there are
no perfect points in neither space nor time, and any simultaneity may only imply
a "very short" time interval, with the meaning of "very short" determined by
the characteristic times of the process under consideration. Thus quantum processes
in atoms and molecules occur simultaneously ("in no time"), compared to the typical
time of a neuron activation; however, these processes are infinitely long compared
with the typical times of nuclear events, as described by quantum chromodynamics.
"But there is a second part to the mind-body problem. It is about the minding
that mind does--thinking, feeling, and so forth."
Where is the problem? That a person (not "mind") can feel, think and wish, is
a trivial fact. If it does not fit into a theoretical scheme, the scheme should
be thrown out and replaced with a better one.
"The programs of the mind can be simulated by computer algorithms, hence the temptation
of assuming that mind is reducible to matter, and mind is brain."
To follow the computer analogy, one would thus conclude that software = hardware,
which is an obvious nonsense. There is difference between the programs, their
representation in the computer, and the computer itself. In any case, the very
idea of programmable mind is rather a play of mind than an approach to develop -
unless it is well paid by those social layers that would like programming other
people as obedient servants.
"One type of model of the quantum in the brain-mind posits a superfluid-like coherence
in the movement of a constituent matrix (Stuart et al, 1978; Lockwood, 1989) arizing
from the interaction dynamics of the many-body system. The latest entry in this field
is the work of Hameroff (1994) who sees this coherent build-up in the structure
of microtubules within the brain cells (see also, Penrose, 1994)."
The arbitrary idea that consciousness resides in the brain leads to as arbitrary
constructs to somehow explain it. It is trivial that the brain (together with
the rest of the human biological body) functions as a whole within a definite
operational context, but this operational integrity comes from the outside rather
than the inside of the brain, which is especially so for conscious activity entirely
dependent on the cultural environment.
There may be cases of the applicability of the same formal models in quite different
systems. The universality of the (un)harmonic oscillator model that is used to describe
anything from elementary particles to social systems is one example. In particular,
one might find that certain aspects of brain operation accompanying some conscious
activity could be described with a particular physical model. There is a lot of such
models that all have right to exist, within their applicability range. Purely
mechanical models (Korenev, 1977; Ivanov, 1989) work as well as quantum control
models (Ivliyev, 1986), and there may be complex hierarchical models involving
the elements of quantum descriptions at a higher level
(Avdeev & Ivanov, 1993)**. The pretence of some authors to have
found the ultimate truth in one of the possible models is as absurd as reducing
all the human psychology to sexual behavior.
"Stapp (1993) also thinks that quantum processes play a key role in the release
of neurotransmitters from vesicles into a synaptic junction. An action potential
pulse opens channels for diffusion of calcium ions into the vesicular release
sites. But the calcium ions are of small enough mass, and thus their diffusion
has a quantum nature."
What has all that to do with consciousness?
"How does an electrical impulse pass from one neuron to another across a synaptic
cleft ? Conventional theory says that the synaptic transmission must be due
to chemical neurotransmitters. E. H. Walker (1970) thinks that the synaptic
cleft is so small that quantum tunneling of electrons may play a crucial role
in the transmission of nerve signals. Eccles (1986, 1994) has discussed a similar
mechanism for invoking the quantum in the brain -- his microsites that
mediate the quantum connection between neurons at the synapses do seem to satisfy
the small-mass requirement of quantum behavior (Herbert, 1993)."
Even if we do not cut off such "theories" using the Okham's razor, there is
no reason to apply them to consciousness, since all they may be related to is
brain functioning.
"A second type of model for the quantum in the brain-mind attempts to find carriers
of relatively small mass so that their movement is adequately quantum to create
the required ambiguity for consciousness to operate upon."
Yet another fictitious means to resolve a fictitious problem.
"Many such quantum interactions occur in possibility at many synaptic sites. This
gives the brain, upon amplification by other neural processes, a macroscopic
possibility structure until one component in that coherent superposition of possibilities
corresponds to a state of macroscopic cognitive meaning that consciousness recognizes."
There are no meanings in the brain. The only meaning something may have is related
to its place in the culture, in the organization of human activity. More specifically,
meaning refers to the standard operational schemes for implementing particular actions
in the specific cultural conditions.
"self-reference is also the most important brain-mind paradox -- how is it that we can
refer to ourselves?"
There is no paradox, if the mind is not identified with the brain, in a vulgar way.
Goswami does not give any answer, he just declares that there is "self-reference",
without any attempt to understand how it comes that we learn to refer to ourselves.
Ignorance for ever.
Trying to overcome his phrenologist sets, Goswami has a vague feeling that there
is something external to the brain that makes it function the way characteristic
of a conscious person. This "something" is like a higher-level person - and an idealist
tends to call it a "god" (or abstract "consciousness", "idea", "will" etc.). An idealist
cannot see the society as the only (material) substrate of consciousness, and acknowledge
the fact that social consciousness is born before individual consciousness, the former
determining the development of the latter. This make the models suggested within
an idealist approach so weak and whimsical.
"Thus the analysis and explanation of mentation calls for a radical hypothesis:
there is, in reality, more than one substance-body. (The word substance here is
to be understood in the broad sense of a mode of being.) Along with our material
body, we also have a subtle body consisting of a mental substance that also obeys
quantum possibility dynamics."
Omitting the absolutely irrelevant reference to quanta, one could be interested in
that "radical hypothesis". Indeed, delivering consciousness from the individual human
body would remove any problems associated with the idea of localized mental functions.
However, why that other body should be non-material??? The human physiological body
is not the only material body in the universe, and if some material thing does not
coincide with it, it is not necessarily mystical and incomprehensible, as the subtlety
of Goswami's reason would suggest. It is above a hundred years ago that the idea
on the non-organic body of a conscious being as the carrier of consciousness has been
put forward by K. Marx; many writers in the former Soviet Union developed this idea,
and there are books written about that [e.g. E. V. Ilyenkov, "Dialectics of the Ideal",
Voprosy Filosofii, no. 6-7 (1979)]. This other body is in no way "subtle",
and it does not consist of any "mental substance", but rather of the material products
of human activity and the organisation of the society allowing their purposeful usage.
"this subtle substance does not interact with the material substance in any direct way;"
Why? There is reason for that, except the a priori assumption that it must be something
mystical and transcendental. Is it wise to introduce a new idea that would add nothing
to our comprehension of the notions already available, since it is not related to them
otherwise than in fantasy?
"And yet the subtle substances can communicate with the physical substance through
the intermediary of consciousness."
Indirect interaction is interaction too. If Goswami had known physics better, he would
have recalled that all the fundamental interactions are mediated by specific
particles/fields, and there is no "direct" interaction at all. However, as soon as
we have interacting objects (and they become objects as soon as we draw them into
our activity, specifically, that of cognition), we loose any scent of mystery around
the carrier of that interaction, which is thus declared to be an object too, with
the both aspects of any object (matter and its motion) applied. Unfortunately, this
model of consciousness as an analogue of a gauge field in social relations has missed
Goswami's attention, and he prefers to leave the reader ignorant about what are those
"substances" he "discovered", and how they interact via consciousness.
"The mental body does what mind is for, thoughts and feelings."
Fine! Instead of the well-known term "the mind", Goswami introduced an awkward
combination "mental body", which, as he admits, does not differ from what is usually
meant under "the mind".
"The physical brain does what it is made for: movement in neurons that causes
physical action."
Without any reference to anything? Spontaneous movements without any reason? How can
one speak of consciousness in such a context?
"one thing is certain: consciousness is needed to make actuality out of the possibilities
that the dual quantum system/classical measurement apparatus(es) present."
What a poor consciousness it would be, if it could manifest itself in only one of
the millions of possible activities! Goswami's castrated "conscious" being cannot
live a normal human life, since all it can do is to perform measurements - sheer
zombie! Well, somebody would pay well for the tools of zombying the others.
"At this point consciousness collapses that component of the uncollapsed coherent
superposition, all the neurons involved in that meaningful state simultaneously fire,
and a perception arises (along with a subject).
This rather hints on an erotic scene. Otherwise, there is nothing but one fantasy
haunting another. Why should there be any collapse? Why do neurons have to react
on it? What may this neural reaction have to do with conscious perception? Why does
the subject have to be identified with perception?
"This includes our brain-mind. Consciousness can collapse the whole conglomerate
because it transcends the material universe."
This is how some writers distort simple things to prove nothing in the end, but
bring in more confusion.
First, there is no mind in the brain, and their identification leads to more perversions:
since the original idea has nothing to do with reality, the only way to connect it
to reality is to also invent some incomprehensible "transcensus". This is a kind
of logical loop, which is well summarized in a Russian saying that could be roughly
translated as: "You have run up against what you have been struggling for." Goswami's
desire to "collapse" by any means drives him to the necessity of explaining this "collapse",
which, being entirely imaginary, cannot be explained otherwise than with more
arbitrary assumptions.
Normal consciousness belongs to this (the only) world, and it does not have to "transcend"
any barriers to comprehend it. It is only the insane consciousness of an idealist that
can feed on ideas like that, and it is only in the societies of a definite type that
such a distorted mentality can develop.
Second, the fact that conscious beings are involved in their activities (e.g. measurement)
does not mean that their consciousness is the only source of any product of an activity
(e.g. measurement result). In most cases, the conscious component is infinitesimal,
compared to what happens following the natural laws, without any human interference.
Further, one can hardly cause anything with mere consciousness, without any material
action. It is only material things that influence other material things. That is,
to obtain any result at all, one has to change something in the world. That is how
people act in reality, rather than in fantasy.
Well, anybody may be mistaken, and one should judge by one's achievements rather than
errors. But are there any achievements, in Goswami's writings? So far, all one can
see is sheer declarations, arbitrary statements borrowed from other authors, and mystical
feeling as a substitute for reason and rationality. After a reading like that, one's
understanding of consciousness does not improve by an iota, if not eventually destroyed
by the conceptual confusion encountered.
"Consciousness is one, unitive (see also, Blood, 1993). Our separateness is only
an apparent one"
There is no word about how anything could be obtained from that "unitive" consciousness
(or rather "emptyness"?). How does it come to apparent separateness? And why should one
consider it as merely apparent? And apparent to whom?
"The solution is to realize that consciousness collapses the possibility wave only
in the presence of an immanent observer."
Nobody can tell what that "collapse" thing is, and it does not make consciousness
more understandable. One can only wonder what is meant under the "immanent observer"
and how this new invention is related to consciousness.
"The subject has downward causation that comes from its freedom of choice to collapse
actuality from possibility, creating manifestation."
An arbitrary assumption that does not tell much about subjectivity. Replacing "freedom
of choice" with "downward causation" is no explanation of anything, rather the inverse.
"What is quite reassuring is that these properties of consciousness -- transcendence,
unity, and self-reference, derived from the requirement that consciousness collapse
the quantum wave function without raizing any new paradoxes -- are also
the characteristics of consciousness that mystics from every age have declared
based on their direct realization."
One can derive anything from a false statement, as basic logic says. However, even
with that, Goswami did not make a slightest attempt to "derive" any properties
of consciousness, and this declaration is nothing but an entirely arbitrary assignment
of a few attributes to an abstraction of "consciousness", which does not become clearer
after that. With the usual notions, one can hardly find "transcendence, unity and
self-reference" to be any characteristic of consciousness, save superficial.
On the other hand, why should these properties have any relation to mystics?
Unity and self-reference are the indispensable attributes of anything at all
in the world, and as for "transcendence", it is an evident indication of the lack
of unity, and one can omit it in a better approach.
"one thing is certain: consciousness is needed to make actuality out of the possibilities
that the dual quantum system/classical measurement apparatus(es) present."
Does that add anything to our understanding of what consciousness is for and how
it manifests itself in human activity? Just as many poorly defined notions around
a much more common idea.
"At this stage, the creative uncertainty as to who the chooser is of a conscious
experience involving the quantum self diminishes. Then we begin to identify with
a separate, individual self, the ego, that perceives apparent continuity in the form
of a stream of consciousness, that thinks it chooses on the basis of its past
experiences, that presumably has free will."
One can call a solution of an arbitrarily designed equation "free will", but this
will not make it have any relation to consciousness and psychology. Phrases like
"creative uncertainty" do not clarify the nature of free will.
"Consciousness can simultaneously collapse possibility waves in the correlated subtle
mental and physical bodies of an individual."
Consciousness is defined as something specially invented to collapse waves in a silly
model that demands such a collapse. This is not the consciousness humans possess.
"In this way, perception produces not only physical representations or memory in
the physical brain but also a tendency in the mental body for certain correlated
states to collapse when a particular physical stimulus is presented."
That is how the well-known notion of a perceptive set transforms in a person poorly
acquainted with traditional psychology.
"Mental substance is subtle; it does not form gross conglomerates. In fact, as Descartes
correctly intuited, mental substance is indivisible. For this substance, then, there
is no reduction to smaller and smaller bits; there is no micro out of which the macro
is made of."
This list of arbitrary assumptions can hardly give one a slightest idea of the nature
of consciousness.
"we can never simultaneously keep track of both the content of a thought and where
the thought is going-- the direction of thought (Bohm, 1951)."
This has not been thoroughly proved. That some primitive people are yet unable to do
it does not mean that a somewhat better developed consciousness cannot do it too.
"For thoughts, we can directly observe them without any intermediary, but the price
is that thoughts are private, internal; we cannot normally share them with others."
Two bits of nonsense. We can never directly observe thoughts, we do it through
a mediating activity. We certainly can share thoughts with the others (at least
with ourselves as models of other persons) - otherwize they cannot be called thoughts;
it is when a person has troubles with sharing thoughts with the others that is commonly
treated as abnormality.
"It is consciousness that chooses which possibility will manifest in actuality."
Especially where it has never been present: in the cores of neutron stars, in a ribosome,
in a cloud, in a lightning spark...
"Although there is commonality in the intentionality of our experience, there is also
undoubtedly a subjective quale."
A very "professional" sentence indeed! If it had ever had a slightest relation
to the topic, it would certainly have been highly appreciated.
"Collapse consists of recognition and choice."
Why should one use that pseudo-scientific talk to speak of phenomena that can be
much clearer expressed in the normal language? Why not simply discuss recognition
and choice as they are, as psychological phenomena, without any recourse
to imaginary "collapse"?
"The two paradoxes, self-reference and quantum measurement, find simultaneous resolution
under the idealist ontology if we posit additionally that the brain has quantum machinery
in addition to the neuronal machinery that act as amplifying measurement apparatuses
for the quantum."
It is quite enough that it works as a physiological control circuitry in the human
body; there is no need in any functionality other than that, to make it support
conscious behavior.
"Last but not least, the question of the mental as opposed to the physical aspect
of an experience: Experiences consist of intentionality toward an object, but
the physical object is not the only object. There is also a mental object in practically
every event of conscious experience. A simple example is when I see a rose I also
concomitantly experience some such thought as: I see a rose. And I experience this
thought not in the ordinary, public physical space of the rose but in a private, mental
space that we call awareness."
Was it necessary to waste so many words to merely say that humans have self-consciousness?
No better understanding is conveyed in all that word jingle anyway.
"The qualia of the primary experience is basically universal, and thus objective in some
sense, but secondary subjective"
Being trapped in the opposition of the object and the subject, Goswami is not aware
of their synthesis, the product. Any product is both objective and subjective, and hence
the above observation would only mean that qualia (whatever is meant by that) are specific
products of human activity, rather that some inherent properties of any system.
"and personal qualities arise from secondary-awareness processing - the reflection
from the mirror of individual brain memory."
In the normal language: self-reflection results in higher-order perception, so that
perception becomes hierarchical.
The way Goswami treats experiment rivals his frivolous interpretation of theory
and unscrupulous manner in philosophy. There may be all kinds of experiments reported
in all the possible ways - but this does not mean that one should not care for what
has been observed and how the results have been obtained.
"It is well known that all attempts by psychologists and neurophysiologists
to split the unity of a conscious experience (for example, by surgically splitting
the brain hemispheres) have failed."
Experiment can never measure "the unity of conscious experience", or any other abstract
idea. What kinds of results have been actually obtained with the split brain remains
unclear from Goswami's text.
"then the subjects can see the words only with unconscious awareness (as in Marcel's
experiment). This guarantees that no choice is made after seeing the words, no collapse
of the dichotomy, until we ask, and there should be interference."
Substituting imaginary collapse in place of ordinary choice makes it utterly
incomprehensible. In reality, practices like that are quite usual in mass propaganda
(brain washing): first make the people form a set using the well-known properties
of unconscious perception, then claim the results of a referendum a manifestation
of the society's free will. One does not need to be conscious to have the brain
washed; on the contrary, the less consciousness, the higher susceptibility to propaganda.
"This question, I think, can be answered with an even more decisive and objective
experiment that can discern between classical and quantum models of the mind."
To discern between different models, one has to have the models first. Goswami did
not suggest any model at all, beyond appeals to mystical revelations, and there is
nothing to compare with experiment. Some other authors may have models, but it has
yet to be demonstrated that those are the models of the mind, rather than something
entirely different.
Anyway, no experiment can help to discern between the models if their authors cannot
discern them from each other! The traditional approach is exactly inverse: take
a definite model and check its applicability to a certain class of experiments.
There may be many models, for different aspects of the mind, and none of them
can be all and only truth.
"Who/what chooses which possibility is manifested in a particular measurement ?"
Experiments provide data, and there are only different interpretations to choose.
Experimentalists never deal with possibilities, they deal with facts.
"If choice is involved, is consciousness? And if consciousness can collapse the quantum wave,"
Consciousness does not mean choice, and vice versa. And the illogical substitution
of "collapse" instead of choice makes any reference to experiment irrelevant.
"The stimulus is processed by the sensory apparatus and presented to the dual quantum
system/classical measurement apparatus."
Why a common stimulus (say, a smell of a rose, or an economic situation in the country)
should have to do anything with quantum measurement? There is no quantum system
to interact with, and no need to invent one.
"Incidentally, the experiments of neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet and his collaborators
(1979) have demonstrated that there is almost half a second of time delay between
the primary event of quantum collapse and our verbal awareness of the event."
There have been thousands of experiments based on latent time measurement, but none
of then has ever dealt with any "collapse".
"Cognitive experiments using polysemous words seem to verify this aspect of the quantum
model. In a representative experiment, Tony Marcel (1980) used strings of three words
in which the middle word was polysemous;"
Experiments like that should be interpreted with care. Since any word at all is polysemous
in the natural language, individual sets are bound to essentially influence the results.
The examinee does not need to have the same notions as the experimentalist, even within
the same cultural layer.
"The original purpose of the experiment was to use the subject's reaction time as a measure
of the relationship between congruence (or lack of it) among the words and the meanings
assigned to the words in such series as hand-palm-wrist (congruent), clock-palm-wrist
(unbiased), tree-palm-wrist (incongruent), and clock-ball-wrist (unassociated)."
The attribution may be considered as arbitrary, since the actual type of association
depends on the sets of the examinee, rather than mere dictionary meanings; the latter
would obviously provide a trivial background, and it is individual deviations from it
that are only meaningful.
"For example, the bias of the word hand, followed by the flashing of palm may be expected
to produce the hand-related meaning of palm, which then should improve the reaction time
of the subject for recognizing the third word wrist (congruence). But if the biasing word
is tree, then the lexical meaning of palm as a tree would be assigned and
the meaning-recognition of the third word wrist should take a longer reaction time
(incongruous). And indeed, this was the result."
One could only wonder why such an experiment should be related to any "collapses".
The usual notions of sensibilization and set are quite enough to account for the effect
described; Goswami's "quantum" explanation cannot add anything.
"Suppose we ask subjects to look at a screen on which a polysemous word (such as palm
in Marcel's experiment) is flashed that has two possible interpretations, A and B.
The quantum state of the subjects' brains would then become a coherent superposition
in response to the ambiguous signal, fifty percent for recognizing A and fifty percent
for B (assuming equal probability for the two possible responses to the picture)."
These are all entirely arbitrary assumptions, starting from the attributing quantum
behavior to the brain, and up to the necessity of a superposition, and the equality
if weights. There are individual and group sets, and one brain does not need
to operate exactly like another.
"Then we bring in a new sample of subjects and flash them first the ambiguous word
with interpretations A and B, followed quickly by the one with interpretations
C and D. Only after seeing both words are they asked for their interpretations.
Since probabilities are multiplicative, if the probabilities are classical, then
the total probability for choosing C for all subjects will be:
5(P1 + P2)."
The only approach to explain psychophysical experiments like that is to consider
the ways humans behave to produce the answers. That is the key point in any model,
and without it all the assertions become nothing but arbitrary assumptions.
"A thorough analysis (McCarthy and Goswami, 1993) shows that, indeed, if the two ambiguous
words are shown simultaneously and with a pattern mask, then, due to quantum interference,
the recognition times for the target word can be drastically different from what is
predicted by connectionist models. Thus this experiment should be able to establish
beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of quantum coherent superpositions in the brain-mind."
Logic is dead. The only conclusion one could draw is that one poor model would produce
results different from another as poor model. No "superpositions" are required for such
an obvious conclusion, however. No reference to real experiment is remarkable too:
imaginary victory over imaginary opponent.
By the way, interference does not imply any quantum effects. Thus, providing close enough
stimuli is bound to involve their perceptive or sensory interference, which is a trivial
result commonly known (and widely used) since the ancient times.
In general, interference is related to the phase shift between the concurrent processes.
Thus, presenting a sample to the examinee starts an inner activity, so that a similar
activity caused by another sample may be incoherent or resonant with it, like in
the case of two oscillators. No quantum physics (and no physics at all) is needed,
since this is simple mathematics equally applicable to phenomena of any nature.
"The recent experiment by the Mexican neurophysiologist Jacobo Grinberg Zilberbaum
and his collaborators directly supports the idea of non-locality in human
brain-minds--this experiment is the equivalent for brains of the objective Aspect
et al's (1982) experiment."
Both experiments are based on very hypothetical assumptions, and there may be quite
different interpretations, of which those without any mystics are certainly preferable.
"Two subjects are instructed to meditate together for a period of twenty minutes
in order to establish a direct communication;"
If you suggest that kind of instruction to a normal person, it would provoke questions
like "What do you mean by meditation?" or "How do we know about establishing direct
communication, and what is it, by the way?" That is, the description of the experiment
lacks the most important component, a definite experimental procedure. With such
a premise, one can obtain anything at all.
"then they enter separate Faraday chambers (metallic enclosures that block electromagnetic
signals) while maintaining their direct communication for the duration of the experiment.
One of the subjects is now shown a light flash that produces an evoked potential
(an electro-physiological response produced by a sensory stimulus measurable by an EEG)
in the stimulated brain. But amazingly, in about one in four cases, the unstimulated
brain also shows an electrical activity, a transferred potential quite similar
in shape and strength to the evoked potential. (Control subjects never show any
transferred potential 2E) The straightforward explanation is quantum non-locality--the two
brain-minds act as a non-locally correlated quantum system. In response to a stimulus
to only one of the correlated brains, consciousness collapses identical states in
the two brains, hence the similarity of the brain potentials
(Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al, 1994)."
The descriptions of numerous experiments like that abound in the books on paranormal
phenomena - however, not a single case has ever been confirmed by an independent study.
Usually, the essential details are omitted in such descriptions, and unessential
details are much dwelt upon to produce the impression of a comprehensive procedure.
One has to carefully analyze the experimental set-up to draw conclusions. I can admit
that, in the GZ experiment, the subjects were somehow informed about the goals
of experiment and techniques used, so that all they needed was just a little
synchronization to produced correlated activities. That is, the "transferred potential"
was produced as a guess of the other subject, who tried to produce it in synch with
the first one. Statistically, such guesses could overlap with the stimulus in 1/4
of all cases, depending on the way of synchronization, which has been prudently
omitted in the report.
That is, there is no "quantum nonlocality" and other mythical inventions. The experiment
merely confirms that people follow similar ways in their activity, which is the basis
of any communication at all and hence has to do with consciousness. If similarly
conditioned, the subjects continue their activity "in phase" for some time, until
another activity interferes.
Similarly, in physics, a spherical wave emitted from a point source keeps phase
correlation in very distant points without any additional synchronization.
Some 27 years ago, I staged many experiments like that with an HP minicomputer,
making the subjects guess characters produced by a random number generator.
The results were quite similar, and there definitely was no meditation and
brain synchronization.
"Clearly, a radical hypothesis is dictated by the experimental data on telepathy,
distant viewing, transferred potential, and the like. How can local signals perceived
by one observer be perceived also by another, without some other local signals ?"
Even provided we believe in telepathy and the like, no non-locality can be considered
in this case, since the observers were never space-like separated, and the typical
reaction times overvalued the time of light propagation from one examinee to another
by many orders of magnitude.
"Because consciousness may choose to collapse identical possibility waves simultaneously
in two correlated locally-separated observers."
But why does it not choose to "collapse" in the other 3/4 cases?
"There is a striking similarity between correlated brains (as in the Grinberg-Zilberbaum
experiment) and correlated photons as in the Aspect experiment, but there is also
a striking difference. The similarity is that in both cases the initial correlation
is produced by some interaction."
What kind of interaction is there in the GZ experiment? Just thinking together cannot
be called interaction.
"But the difference is that in the former case, as soon as the wave function is collapsed
by measurement, the objects become uncorrelated; but in the case of the correlated brains,
consciousness maintains the correlation over the one-hundred light flashes that are needed
to get the average evoked potential."
The both "explanations" are mystical, and one can assert anything at all about imaginary things.
"Thus the question arises, Is there an unambiguous way to discern between a quantum
and a classical computer model of cognition?"
The question is ill-formulated. It assumes that there is something uniform and simple
that should be called consciousness and that all the theoretical models should apply to.
But this is absolutely inapplicable to human consciousness, since flexibility and
versatility are its determinative features! There many facets of consciousness
(even Goswami admits that there is a hierarchy), so that different models may apply
to different manifestations of consciousness rather than to the same thing. In this
case, it is absolutely meaningless to ask which description is the best - all are
correct within their limits of applicability. The only scientific question is that
of the applicability range; science has never dealt with truth.
"We can take advantage of the fact that the unconscious mind does not choose unless
there is an observation with awareness"
A bluntly wrong assertion. There is no such fact, at least because the abstractions
like "unconscious mind" have to be properly defined before applying them to any
observable phenomenon, and hence one can only speak of interpretations, rather than facts.
"But we can think of a very plausible way to carry out a successful experiment."
Yes, they can. Just fancy it and swindle the results to conform to any desirable behavior.
As one can see, the much pretence Goswami puts into his writings presents a sorry spectacle
at a closer investigation. Well, this is in the nature of show business - the only name
applicable to what Goswami is engaged in. Shine in the spotlight, and fade in the sun.
"To see how a tangled hierarchy arises in the brain-mind, let us examine a crude model
of the brain-mind's response to an ambiguous stimulus (Goswami, 1993)."
This is an example of a VERY crude model! Up to having nothing to do with reality.
"The differentiation of unconscious and conscious processing: There is now data showing
unconscious perception -- a subject sees enough to act on the basis of it,
but is not conscious of the seeing. Unconscious processing is also acknowledged as
part of the creative process (Wallas, 1926), and much evidence exists in favor of it
(Goswami, 1999). But in material realist cognitive science, it is not easy to formulate
a paradox-free distinction between the unconscious and conscious that also agrees
with experimental data (McCarthy and Goswami, 1993)."
This pretends to discover something new about consciousness and the unconscious,
actually being a collection of banalities.
"In other words, learning biases the quantum dynamics of the brain-mind and thus
reduces the access to its full potentia."
Fine! If you learn, you risk to reduce you potentia; do not learn, stay ignorant
like Goswami - and you will be as potent.
"The alternative is to admit that the neuronal configuration does not provide
a complete description of the experience (Goswami, 1994)."
It does not provide any description at all. In particular, no complete description.
"The theory of quantum functionalism above, having addressed the paradox of self-reference,
thus also successfully eradicates the paradox of the qualia of experiences. In this theory,
the processing of the incoming stimulus involves quantum processes and their amplification
at every stage, leading to a macroscopic coherent superposition of possibilities until
consciousness supervenes."
A pompous declaration with no meaning at all.
"Because consciousness of the experience transcends the brain-state of
the quantum/classical ensemble,"
Why should it transcend anything?
"the latter is clearly an incomplete description of the experience."
It is no description at all. It is a myth.
"Yet the subject consciousness of the experience (the subject pole with the qualia
of experience) arises co-dependently and tangled-hierarchically with the chosen
brain-state (the object pole), both of which exist only as possibility until the collapse,
and no dualism is involved."
Simple admission that people live and act in the world, being a part of it, leads
to as comprehensive conclusion, without any additional constructs needed.
"The quantum theory distinguishes between conscious and unconscious perception."
Pretending that his "quantum theory" incorporates the unconscious, Goswami never gives
any actual description, no explanation, or indication to any specific property of
the unconscious that would not be a mere reference to what has been empirically
discovered long ago.
"But in unconscious (subliminal) perception, in which consciousness but not
awareness is present,"
Most psychological conceptions treat the unconscious is a necessary part of consciousness,
a level in its hierarchy, which distinguishes consciousness from mere awareness,
and humans from animals.
"Unconscious processing is found to be of crucial importance in the creative process,
for which a quantum explanation has been given (Goswami, 1999)."
One might think that Goswami refers to some recent discovery made by himself! The role
of the unconscious in creativity was a centuries-old banality long before quantum
mechanics appeared. And, as one can easily check, Goswami cannot explain anything
at all with his mix of pseudo-physics and poor eclectic philosophy.
"However, the situation is different in the present theory. With brain damage,
the learned representation of that particular body part is gone. Thus, according
to the present model, surprise is natural."
This is sheer phrenology, to think that mental images could be localized in
a particular area of the brain. When one encounters such a primitivism in
the end of the XX century, surprise is natural.
"The idea of consciousness self-referentially collapsing both the object pole
of the experience and the subject pole, where the quality of the experience lies,
also resolves the thorny issue of the oneness of a conscious experience - the idea
that we can be consciously aware at any given instant of only one particular thing."
An attempt to resolve a non-existing problem. The unity of the object and
the subject may become a philosophical position, and it was treated by many
philosophers in different ways, without any "collapse".
"In the conventional cognitive-science model of perception, it is assumed that
the brain makes a mental representation of a sensory object, an image, which
is what we see."
Vulgar notions of cognitive science interpreted by a vulgar philosopher. We do not
see any images, we see objects. The mechanism of seeing is an object too, and it
can be rationally comprehended. Also, that the world is reflected by the brain
(as by any other body) is not enough for conscious perception.
" the main problems with the representational model of perception are these:
(1) The model implies a dualistic homunculus in our head watching the mental
representational show offered to it; otherwise, how does the subject-object
experience of the watching come about ?
(2) The brain representation of a perceived object invariably involves many
brain areas, but the experience of perception is one of unity; we don't perceive
all the different aspects of imaging separately, they are all integrated. With
local mechanisms alone, it is hard to solve this binding problem (Feynman, 1981).
(3) With a strictly objective model of perception, it is hard to explain
the subjective quality of experience referred to as qualia by philosophers.
(4) Still another difficulty is that the image in our brain after processing by the
higher centers is not an exact replica of the object, and yet, somehow we are
able to translate the image into the object, and in such a way as to form a consensus
with other observers (although it is by no means clear that what we see in consensus
viewing is necessarily the object in its suchness, a point made by the philosopher
Immanuel Kant). As Eccles (1994) notes, how does spatio-temporal neuronal activity
in the cerebral cortex evoke a perception of the object in the mind?
(5) And perhaps most importantly, the mental aspects of perception, the mental
representation and associated awareness, thoughts, concepts, and other mental
objects are internal and private in contrast to the physical aspect of perception,
the external, public object which we share with other people."
This is a list of common prejudice. Neither item poses any problem for a normal
person, who does not doubt the existence of other people and their productive
activity in a real world. There is nothing to answer and nothing to discuss.
One might only observe that all these items apply to Goswami's writings as well,
despite his pretence to suggest anything better.
"Now, the representational model would be more suited if perception is a matter
of recognition, not cognition."
But that is how it is in reality! We perceive our products, and never "raw"
sensory stimuli. No wonder, abstract speculations can never guess of productive
activity as the material basis of consciousness.
"The breakthrough in pattern recognition by computers came when it was realized
that instead of programming computers to cognize a pattern, we can teach
them to do so."
This is how sociality enters the game.
"This has been corrected in quantum functionalism in which consciousness is defined
to transcend both matter and mind."
So, what is consciousness? Something indeterminable and transcendental. All one can get
from Goswami's "theory".
"If transcendent consciousness is always looking and collapsing, quantum possibilities
would never develop and all the wonderful phenomena of quantum physics that give us
the technologies of computers, lasers, and superconductors would be impossible."
Non-transcendent consciousness is servicing human activities for many years, without
collapsing. This gives birth to any achievements of human creativity, and lack
of consciousness results in mystical speculations.
To summarize the three previous sections:
1. Goswami pretends to be a physicist, but demonstrates ignorance in elementary
issues of science.
2. Goswami pretends to be a philosopher, but can never suggest anything beyond
eclectic mix of statements borrowed from other philosophers without too much
concern about consistency and logic.
3. Goswami pretends to explain consciousness. He can add nothing to what was known
before, and he can explain nothing at all.
In general, Goswami produces the impression of a person who cannot see any real
problem and invents toy problems to solve with imaginary means.
One might ask why such a profanation of both science and philosophy could receive
a relatively wide audience in the world? The natural answer is that it serves
the interests of certain social layers that prefer to keep people ignorant rather
than educate them.
"But I think the mystical connection is a virtue, for the present development
can be used to bridge science and spirituality"
The word "spirituality" is improperly used in place of "spiritualism". To properly
formulate it: religion tries to tame science and make it serve its profit. This
strides along with the ruling classes attempting to use science to consolidate
their social position. There is a self-consistent mechanism: mass ignorance in science
and philosophy makes people unable to distinguish scientific and philosophical works
from mere swindling, which makes it easier to control the public consciousness.
Poor acquaintance with science and philosophy is intended to inspire a mystical
awe in the face of the teachers like Goswami, thus depriving people of true spirituality
and hindering development of consciousness:
"This is the idea that I (Goswami, 1990) have adapted into an idealist model
of consciousness, quantum measurement, and self-reference called quantum functionalism."
* The title of a satirical theatre play by
Kozma Prutkov,
a bright personality who
had never inhabited a human body, but managed to write prose and poetry
that received tremendous popularity in Russia; his aphorisms became
a significant part of the Russian language.
** I intentionally omit the exact references. These are not the only models
one could find in the literature.
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