[A later version of this paper is at http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/paris2n.txt] Science, Values, and the Nature of the Human Person. (May 21, 2001, Paris) Science has improved our lives in many ways. It has lightened the load of tedious tasks and multiplied our physical powers, and thus contributed to a greater flowering of our creative capacities. But it has also contributed to a sense of malaise among those who sometimes stand back from the pursuit of material ends and seek to satisfy their yearning for a better understanding of how we fit into the scheme of things, and how we should conduct our lives. This problem stems from the fact that physical science has, until now, focused on describing the behavior of matter. But the important and exciting news is that this study has revealed fundamental flaws in our earlier understanding of the nature of matter, and our new understanding impacts strongly on these human issues. My intention is to introduce you to the vistas opened up by this deeper understanding of the nature of matter. These advances lead me to believe that, in the end, the greatest gift of science to humanity will be not its material benefits, but rather a shift in values generated by what it reveals about ourselves, and our connection to the rest of nature. It is often claimed that science has no connection to values. To counter that idea I shall begin by sketching out a bit of human intellectual history. I divide this history into five periods: traditional, modern, transitional, post-modern, and contemporary. During the "traditional" era our understanding of ourselves and our relation to nature was based on "ancient traditions" handed down from generation to generation. "Tradition" was the chief source of wisdom about our connection to nature. The "modern" era began in the seventeeth century with the rise of what is called "modern science". That approach was based on the ideas of Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton, and it provided a new source of knowledge, which came to be regarded by many thinkers as more reliable than tradition. The basic idea of the modern era was "materialism". This is the idea that the physical world is composed basically of tiny particles of matter interacting with each other according to "laws of nature", and that these laws completely determined the course of physical events, for all time, from the initial conditions. These laws did not acknowledge the existence of our conscious thoughts, ideas, feelings, and efforts, and even excluded the possibility that supernatural agencies, such as gods or spirits, could influence the course of physical events. Matter was asserted to be governed by matter alone, acting in accordance with impersonal, local, mechanical laws. This materialist conception of reality began to crumble at the beginning of the twentieth century with Max Planck's discovery of the quantum of action. Planck announced to his son that he had, on that day, made a discovery as important as Newton's. That assessment was certainly correct: the ramifications of Planck's discovery were soon to cause Newton's materialist conception of physical reality to come crashing down. Planck's discovery marks the beginning of the "transitional" period. A second devastating development soon followed: In 1905 Einstein announced his special theory of relativity. It denied the validity our intuitive idea of the instant of time "now", and promulgated the thesis that even the most basic quantities of physics had no objective "true values", but were definite only "relative" to the observer's point of view. Planck's discovery led by the mid twenties to a complete break-down, at the fundamental level, of the material conception of nature. The new basic physical theory was developed principally by Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, and Max Born, and it brought "the observer" explicitly into physics: physics was viewed as a HUMAN ENDEAVOUR designed to make predictions about how the results of human observations were correlated with each other. It involved a renunciation of all efforts to describe or understand the physical reality that is the cause of these correlations between our observations. This approach is called "Copenhagen quantum theory". This overturning by science itself of the tenets of the objective materialist philosophy lent support to Post-Modernism. That view, which emerged during the second half of the twentieth century, promulgated, in essence, the idea that all "truths" were relative to one's point of view, and were mere artefacts of some particular social group's struggle for power over competing groups. Thus each social movement was entitled to its own "truth", which was viewed simply as a socially created pawn in the power game. The connection of Post-Modern thought to science is that both Copenhagen Quantum Theory and the Theory of Relativity had retreated from the idea of observer-independent objective truth. Thus science, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, had not only knocked out materialism as a possible foundation for objective truth, but had moreover discredited the very idea of objective truth in science. But if even the community of scientists have renounced the idea of absolute truth in favor of the pragmatic value of what works for one's group, then every group is licensed to do the same: If an idea is useful to a group with a certain agenda, then that is true for that group. This point of view has had profound social ramifications. The physicists who had started this mischief were generally too interested in the practical developments in their own field to get involved in these philosophical issues. Thus they failed to broadcast an important fact; already by mid-century, a development in physics had occurred that provides an effective antidote to both the `materialism' of the modern era, and the `relativism' and `social constructionism' of the post-modern period. John von Neumann developed, during the early thirties, a form of quantum theory that brought the physical and mental aspects of nature together as two aspects of a rationally coherent whole. This theory was elevated by the work of Tomonaga and Schwinger, during the late forties, to a form compatible with the physical requirements of the Theory of Relativity. Von Neumann's theory, unlike the transitional ones, integrated the data from both the physical sciences and psychology, and was compatible with the existence of observer-independent objective truth. Let me explain how von Neumann accomplished these things. The earlier Copenhagen approach applied the principles of quantum theory only to relatively small systems, and used classical concepts to describe the rest of nature. This procedure of treating different parts of the physical world in logically incompatible ways worked beautifully at the practical level, but it introduced severe logical difficulties. But these logical difficulties were evaded in Copenhagen quantum theory by renouncing the search for objective reality: "if it works, that's good enough." But von Neumann demanded logical coherence, and this meant treating the entire physical universe, including our bodies and brains, quantum mechanically, and connecting a person's conscious thoughts to activities in his brain in accordance with laws provided by the theory itself. This new integral conception of the human person departs radically from the earlier scientific picture of man in three important ways: 1. It is based on A NEW CONCEPTION OF MATTER that differs profoundly from the old one, which is provably false. 2. It automatically produces a bona fide, rather than illusory, FREE WILL. 3. This free will can CAUSALLY INFLUENCE the person's brain. 4. It allows for THE EVOLUTION OF MIND from a primitive beginning to its present form. These four changes add up to a rationally coherent conception of the human person that differs profoundly from the caricature that arose from materialism. And this new conception provides a new basis in science for moral philosophy. Each of these four points constitutes a very deep change from earlier ideas. Although they are expressions of mathematical conditions, I want to explain them to you in simple terms. The first point is the new idea of "matter". By this new idea of "matter" I mean the new idea of the "stuff" out of which the physical universe is made. The properties of this stuff are radically different from the properties of matter postulated by Isaac Newton and his successors. The properties of "quantum matter" lie "mid-way" between those of classical matter and mind: "matter" has moved toward "mind". But how can that possibly be? It seems at first inconceivable that anything could lie between mind and classically conceived matter: the two seem too utterly different to be combined. Indeed, it was only with great difficulty that this new idea of the nature of the physical universe was hammered into the minds of physicists by the incessant beating of the empirical data. The two aspects are joined as follows. The classical-matter aspect arises from the fact that the quantum universe can be described as a cloud of "virtual" classical-type universes that evolves "almost always" in accordance with the Schroedinger equation. This equation is the quantum analog of Newton's equations of motion. Thus many features of the Newtonian idea of the universe are transferred to the quantum universe by the fact the latter is a cloud of "possibilities" for the former. The mind-like features then enter through the cracks opened up by the words "virtual" and "almost always". The word "virtual" signifies that the copies are not fully real: they are real only as "potentialities for an `event' to occur". What kind of Event? A Psycho-Physical Event! What is that? It is the occurrence of a "Mental Event" that grasps a whole unit of structural information, and injects it into the quantum state of the universe. This injection is called by physicists "the reduction of the wave-packet, "or "the collapse of the wave function." It converts the existing physical world of potentialities or possibilities to a new form that incorporates the newly grasped structural information. This thumb-nail description is enough to reveal the huge difference between the classical and quantum descriptions of the universe: the former is in terms of LOCALIZED BITS OF "SUBSTANCE", whereas the latter is in terms of NONLOCALIZED BITS OF "INFORMATION", which are mentally grasped as wholes, and physically represented by changes in an evolving cloud of virtual classical universes. Von Neumann's work associates each Psycho-Physical event with the mind/brain of an observer/participant, and ties the mental event of grasping a new bit of information to the brain event that incorporates that bit of information into the physical universe. This brain event "actualizes", or saves, precisely the "neural correlate" of the mental event, and eliminates from the cloud of virtual possibilities all contributions that are incompatible with the information grasped by the mental event. This reduction of the cloud of virtual possibilities constitutes a direct action of mind on matter. This first feature of the theory is important: it describes the action of mind on matter. But two key questions then arise: Is mind FREE in any sense, and, if so, in what sense? Can mind influence the behavior of average values of physical properties of the brain? [i.e., IS MIND CAUSALLY EFFICACIOUS?] It is sometimes suggested that the statistical aspect of quantum theory could justify the idea of "free will". However, the inclusion of a statistical or random element into the dynamics makes the situation worse: it makes it even more difficult for our mental resolves to control our physical actions. The intrusion of true randomness, which is what quantum theory demands, tends to decrease the effectiveness of mind, rather than increasing it. Quantum theory accommodates "free will", but this freedom does not arise from an exploitation of the randomness of quantum theory. It arises, instead, from two facts: **quantum dynamics proceeds via the posing of questions, and **the known laws of quantum theory do not determine which questions are asked, or when they are asked. These two facts inject an essential element of freedom right into the basic dynamics! Let me explain. Orthodox quantum theory is similar to the parlor game "twenty questions". In the quantum case the game is played between an observer/participant and Nature. The observer/participant first devises, and then "puts to nature", a specific question that can be answered "Yes" or "No", where the "Yes" must correspond to a Psycho-Physical event of the kind described before, and "No" is its complement. Nature then returns an answer. The rules of quantum theory specify the relative probabilities of the two possible answers, "Yes" and "No". The key point is that although NATURE'S ANSWERS are governed, at least in the statistical sense, by the laws of quantum theory, THE OBSERVER/PARTICIPANT'S QUESTIONS ARE NOT CONTROLLED IN ANY WAY BY ANY *KNOWN* LAW OF NATURE. Let me explain this. In the original Copenhagen quantum theory each observer/participant is given the freedom to choose which question he will put to nature: which experimental apparatus he will set in place. That theory places the observer/participant who makes this choice outside the physical system described by the known quantum rules: this choice is a FREE VARIABLE, insofar as the known laws of quantum theory are concerned. Von Neumann reformulated the theory: He put the BODY AND BRAIN of the observer/participant inside the physical universe. But what about the MIND of the observer/participant? In the application of quantum theory, it is the MIND that registers the observation and makes the conscious choices. von Neumann, in order to show the equivalence of his theory to the Copenhagen version at the practical level, must maintain a formal correspondence between the two versions. Accordingly he leaves the abstract "ego" of the observer outside the physical universe. This abstract "ego" must be identified with the MIND OF THE OBSERVER/PARTICIPANT, in order to maintain the needed correspondence between the two theories. This makes the choice of question a FREE CHOICE within von Neumann's theory in the same sense as it is free in Copenhagen quantum theory. Von Neumann's theory, as he describes it, places the choice of the question OUTSIDE the laws of quantum theory that he describes. This element of freedom allows "the questions", which are necessary parts of the game, to "bootstrap" themselves into being: whatever laws control the selection of the questions can be completely compatible with all the known laws of quantum theory, both statistical and otherwise, yet not be entailed by these laws. von Neumann quantum theory contains this essential element of freedom. But can this element of freedom DO ANYTHING? Can the exercise of this freedom INFLUENCE average values of properties of the brain? The answer is YES! There is a well known property of quantum theory called the quantum Zeno effect, which works as follows: if the SAME question is repeatedly posed VERY RAPIDLY, on the time scale of the subsystem that is carrying the answer to the question, then the answer, YES OR NO, gets held in place much longer, on the average, than it would if the question were not being asked rapidly! Asking a question is making an inquiry about something, and making an inquiry about something activates the psychological process of "attending". Thus a rapid-fire sequence of consents to ask some particular question will have the effect of holding one's attention fixed on some item: the exercise of one's freedom to ask questions can have the effect of keeping one's brain and mind focused on some intention, rather than drifting off as it otherwise would. For example, the rapid repetition of the question "Shall I consent to continued focusing attention on plan of action P?" can have the effect of keeping attention focused on that plan, instead of being diverted by competing brain processes. But focusing one's attention normally influence one's behaviour. Free Will is thereby made causally efficacious. Both Copenhagen quantum theory and von Neumann's reconstruction of it focused on human consciousness and human behaviour. But the universe evidently existed long before human beings appeared on the scene. So I assume that human beings are just one special kind of observer/participant, and that the von Neumann theory is universal: it covers of these agents. This means that the theory must, in due course, be expanded to specify exactly what physical conditions are necessary or sufficient to allow a physical system to be a quantum agent. One way to investigate this question is study the evolution of the human mind/brain from its presumed primitive beginnings. Human minds and brains evidently function in a closely coordinated way. But why are they connected in this way? The natural way to explain this close coordination is via the theory of evolution: the effect of mind could have a survival advantage, provided mind and brain are properly connected. However, there could be no advantage of a close coordination between mind and brain if mind had no causal efficacy: mind could become totally disconnected from brain with no effect on survival prospects. Thus the causal efficacy of mind that von Neumann theory allows is a necessary prerequisite for this naturalistic explanation of the close coordination between our thoughts and activities in our brains. Let me recap the central points. My first main point is that the "Materialism" of "modern physics" is strictly incompatible with the empirical evidence: it is scientifically inaccurate to say that mind MUST BE matter, as matter was conceived at the beginning of the twentieth century. MIND CANNOT BE CLASSICAL MATTER, because that kind of matter does not exist in our part of the universe. My second main point is that von Neumann quantum theory is the only physical theory that makes a serious attempt to incorporate mind. It gives a radically new idea of the physical world: the physical world, as represented in the mathematics of QT, is an accumulation of BITS OF INFORMATION, grasped by observers, and preserved in an evolving cloud of potentialities for future graspings. This quantum conception of nature DEMANDS a process of posing questions, in order to keep the universe from speading out into an ever-expanding set of potentialities. none of which are ever seized. And this DEMAND leads automatically to "free will", which consists of elements of freedom that are NOT GOVERNED BY THE KNOWN LAWS OF NATURE, but that CAN INFLUENCE BRAIN activity. My third main point is that any support that post-modern thought might try to draw from the breakdown of the idea of objective truth within science is negated by the fact that this breakdown arose, during the transitionary period, from the incomplete integration of the observer into the theory. Bringing mind into physics in a rationally coherent way leads to a theory that is completely compatible with the existence of objective truth. My fourth main point is one not mentioned so far. It concerns the nonlocal entanglement of the human person with the rest of nature The thing that drove the final nail into the coffin of materialism was the debate between Einstein and Bohr, and the subsequent contribution of John Bell. Einstein, and two colleagues, Podolsky and Rosen, came up with a tight argument that proved, on the basis of an assumption that nature allowed no causal influence to travel faster-than-light, that quantum theory could not be complete. Bohr was hard pressed to rebut this argument. He was finally forced to assert that although "mechanical" influences could not propagate faster than light, certain other more subtle kinds of influences pertaining to information could. This way of evading Einstein's conclusion, by admitting faster-than-light influences, was taken by many critics to be tantamount to admission that Einstein was right! However, Bell proved conclusively that no theory that conforms to the ideas that Einstein espoused, could possibly fit certain predictions of quantum theory. The empirical validity of these predictions have by now been essentially confirmed by many experiments. Hence Einstein's position has been proved wrong. This suggests that Bohr's quantum-theoretic answer is correct. Indeed, his conclusion can be proved by direct argument. The subtle faster-than-light influences whose existence Bohr acknowledged are explicitly present in von Neuman-Tomonaga-Schwinger objective quantum theory. These influences entail that our human experiences are entangled with faraway events in ways that are totally incompatible with the tenets of materialism. Thus, according to this objective quantum theory, the human person is much more deeply entangled with nature than the local materialistic ideas of pre-quantum physics could ever allow. Many of the ills that afflict humankind today stem from the seeming pointlessness of life that arises from looking at ourselves through the eyes of science. For centuries science has been proclaiming that the human person is naught but a mechanical automaton whose every act was pre-ordained before he was born. More recently, in the early twentieth century, basic science, in an about face, renounced the search for objective truth and settled for practical results. Thus the attempt to base conduct on reason and empirical evidence led, seemingly, into a abyss of confusion and moral relativism. However, those particular approaches to science systematically avoided, as too difficult, or beyond its scope, the basic question at issue, which is the nature of the intertwining of our material and mental aspects. This is the mind/body problem, and the closely connected problem of free will. Science, rationally pursued, with the aim of uncovering the nature of the human person, reveals a far richer conception of what we are than earlier scientific or philosophical thought imagined. The new quantum conception of the human person, with its causally efficacious free will, and its profound nonlocal intertwining of man and nature, can propel a shift in human values away from the narrow ones thrust upon us by the earlier scientific images of man, and toward ones more concordant with our intuitive and traditional image of ourselves as agents deeply entwined with nature in ways that transcend materialist science. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- May 21 Paris Talk (Outline) Part I: The Physics of Consciousness (ala Bohr/von Neumann). MIND 1) Mind is basic! (Science is about regularities in human experience: Matter is a theoretical construct.) 2) The stream of conscious experiences is NOT made out of brain stuff. 3) Experience is TWO-WAY dynamically connected to brain. MATTER 1) Quantum matter is midway between classical matter and mind. 2) The physical world is a cloud of possible classical worlds. 3) "Events" inject INFORMATION into the physical world. FREEDOM 1) There are TWO KINDS of "free" choices. 2) Nature's "free" choices are subject to statistical regularities. 3) Human "free" choices are subject to no KNOWN laws. WILL 1) Human "free" choices can influence brain activity. 2) Mental effort can keep attention focussed. 3) This "explains" much psychological and psychiatric data. NONLOCALITY 1) Human "free" choices have "instantaneous" effects far away. 2) The world is "nonlocally entangled". 3) The "end of science" is not imminent! Part II: Moral Impact. A. "Personal responsibility" is rescued. B. "Objective truth" is rescued. C. Human consciousness is an integral part of the nonlocal process that creates the evolving informational universe. ------------------------------------------------------------