PROLOGUE.

The Genesis of Thought in the BPS Model

© Lux, Veritas et Vitae

     Natural language continues to play, in our opinion, a leading role  in the formulation and explanation of what is alleged by cosmologists (and other brainy poets) to be a conformation and functioning of the all encompassing global consciousness. We still hope to identify that missing link connecting the sense-phenomenal ontology (of the perceptually falsifiable observations in objects and events, by external or internal receptors) and the corresponding abstract epistemology (of the conceptual, mathematical/modal-logic maps) of the experienced existential reality. A tautological, epistemontological hybrid model of reality would be our biggest contribution to the study of consciousness. But, as before, the effort has turned out to generate more questions and abstractions than we had hoped to answer and bargained for. As we discussed in the first volume of "Neurophilosophy of Consciousness." (chapters 12, 21, 22) and many other places since, we had hoped to give a complete ambitious description of the amygdaloid complex as a natural candidate for the seat of consciousness based primarily, among other things, on its well documented participation (with the hippocampus formation) in coordinating the avoidance reflex responses when humans were confronted with natural life-threatening environmental stimuli. This would arguably take care of the ontological aspect of the hybrid model of reality. As it turns out the stimulating natural object / event in this case is meaning-neutral, the semantic tag being provided by inherited life-preserving amygdaloidal audio-visual (and other modalities) codelets as modified by experience. We called the amygdaloidal complex the inherited proto-semantic data base. Pursuant to the analysis we developed we designated the ‘shores’ surrounding the Sylvian fissure (perisylvian area) inter-connecting all sensory inputs traveling into Heschl-Wernicke’s-angular gyrus region and relaying them to Broca’s area (pre-frontal executive cortex), the ‘proto-linguistic organ’ (plo). We labored hard to weave together a meta-linguistic distributed network headquartered at ‘plo’ and modeled to integrate nativist considerations on syntax, semantics, referentials, phonology, truth values, pragmatics, vector space network theory and DNA-encoded language inputs. We even thought we had found the 4-d coordinates for Chomsky’s generative grammar as the same locus for a regenerative semantics, all embodied by the ‘plo’. There we could combine both elements (universal grammar & proto-semantics) and bring to life a comprehensive theory of ‘meaning’ linking linguistic elements such as figures, signs, noises, marks and body movements as different manifestations of a communication urge, mostly reducible in principle to ‘propositional attitudes’ as configured in syntax structure and semantics. We hoped it would represent the beginnings of a veritable truth-conditional theory of meaning of high coherence value. We laid the foundations, based on a reinterpretation of Fodor’s ‘mentalese’ and Piaget’s theory on language acquisition by the newborn as discussed in Volume I (chapter 5) and elsewhere. We scattered many seeds on fertile grounds to germinate and flourish but still have not found the magic fertilizer concept to make them sprout into a luxuriant independent existence.

     In this second volume we inevitably compounded the complexity of an explanation on the structure/function of empirical reality when we realized the importance of 'time' in extracting meaningful BPS survival information from a potentially dangerous environment. In the first volume we concluded, with others, that 'change', not time, was the most important independent variable. Any serious observer must have noticed how reality seems to be undergoing inexorable changes at all levels of organization, from the cosmological to the sub-Planckian levels. Yet, when we get a closer analytical look at objects they seem to change independent of causal, temporal or symmetrical considerations. This contrasts with our vital existential life dependence on those variables? We spend various chapters in this second volume explaining why we must invent the concepts of time and space to deal with nature's temporal asymmetry. We are not sure how successful our modeling of reality would be when force to include 'time' in our algorithm as a sine qua non to make sense and extract meanings from  nature's acausal, atemporal and asymmetric reality, not to mention its probabilistic behavior, as discussed below. Thus we find ourselves in a sense-phenomenal world posited between the cosmological and noumenal invisibility to our senses and brain computational capacities requiring the invention of a non-observation-based mathematics and logic to explain the un-describable probable reality we live in. The solution is a synthesis of the falsifiable empirical descriptions with the mathematical logic explanations using the metaphysical tool of quantum theory. This synthetic amalgamation of the perceptual and the conceptual required no less than a modification of both quantum theory and classical logic to accomodate the human 'free will' between the indeterministic epistemological explanations and the ontological descriptions of a probable world. Enter the epistemontological model successes and pitfalls as described below.

         In our opinion, we repeat, the focus of any such search for a marketable algorithm should start first on revaluating the role played by nature’s non-intentional sounds and signs as they get incorporated into heritable proto-semantic ‘mentalese’ ‘atomic’ codelets and second on analyzing the relative priority assignment of verbal (and non-verbal) language in either thought ‘formation’ and / or ‘transmission’. The priority choices get narrowed down to the alternatives of considering language as either causally efficient in producing thought or dependant on it. Both alternatives either co-exist independently or are mutually dependent on each other. We still sustain that the biological survival inherited proto-semantics in defense of biological integrity of the human species default the operation of the psychic and social domains. In what seems like a deterministic world where the visceral limbic brain defaults and controls a bio-psycho-social (BPS) neuro-humoral equilibrium, man combines his perceptual and conceptual past experiences in cortical attractor units of probable future adaptive outcomes behavior ready to be executed when confronted with a significant BPS change of survival contingencies threatening the BPS equilibrium.

     The inescapable (and expected 'lei motif') is clearly seen when considering causality relations between two different domains, the 'physical' language (or its symbolic representation thereof) and the non-physical ‘thought’. Fortunately, for starters, the choice approach should narrow down to an manageable epistemological argumentation, trying to avoid the constraints of wearing an elusive ontological straight jacket fitting an ephemeral ‘thought entity’. The chosen strategy is driven by pragmatic considerations if one can appreciate that it is more reliable to analyze language as the basis of thought than the opposite approach requiring more speculative activity when analyzing what ‘content’ of thought is causing language generation as we analyzed in the first volume.. Besides, the only known way we can be sure about subject A’s thought content is by way of subject A’s first person account, a language narrative. Analytically speaking, the choices are clear: either we get more tangible results concentrating on analyzing linguistic syntacto-semantics structure as being causal to thought or get lost analyzing the elusive vagaries about the ‘intentionality’ content of thought or mental states as causally efficient in producing the logic structure of language. The latter approach, besides being counter-intuitive, would have to depend considerably more on self-referential accounts of language users about the beliefs and intentional mental states allegedly preceding the corresponding language formulation on the basis of an equally questionable co-variation of thought and language, or teleological wishful thinking or an unconscious self-serving functional scheme of neo-behaviorists as discussed elsewhere.

     However, a re-interpretation of both Grice and Fodor may well do the trick as we discuss in Volume 1. Based on all things considered and their possible outcomes that we gambled and put our stock on the idea of a language precursor to thought, especially after having previously suggested the proto-linguistic organ ('plo') as the putative site for the assembling of language-dependent thoughts, an attractive connectionist / representationalist view of how the mind may operate. We also thought that our new cortical attractor basin approach would give the clinician/theoretician  an additional pragmatic/logic tool to predict psychic etiologies of disease based on first person mental state narratives as an additional input.

     This places modal logic and quantum theory development (and ‘plo’) at center stage in our evolving ‘bps’ model of consciousness. We had reasoned early on that if an appropriate environmental life- threatening stimulus, e.g., a snake sound and a visual context of the scenery it came from, can trigger an adaptive inborn behavior in a newborn species by ‘plo’ then it can also be involved in related but more complex language elaboration. By integrating into its species-specific genetic memory the acquired memories of existence, the primeval sounds and sights danger cues get elaborated into a biopsychosocial (‘bpo’) survival strategy, including a communication tool. The role played by DNA, genetic archetypes, etc. in unleashing chemically-mediated adaptive responses when triggered by environmental stimuli (cues) has been discussed elsewhere. This mechanism included a consideration of mother’s ‘baby talk’ cooing and her facial expressions as effective primitive phonemes and cues to trigger appropriate modifier archetypes that add on to the genetic proto-semantic reservoir of inherited ‘meanings’. The role played by cortical ‘mirror neurons’ in imitating behavior is reasonably well established. We now add another dimension to mirror neuron assemblies when we charging them with empathizing not only with the subject under observation but also with the observer and thereby generating the experience of self consciousness as discussed in this volume.Thus the inherited universal grammar links with a regenerative semantics clothed in phonology and mimicry to evolve the sentential logic structure (‘propositional attitudes’?). Species’ environmental survival tactics, clothed as nature’s ‘meaningful cues’ survive by getting coded into DNA, transmitted across generational gaps and translated in the newborn into a proto-semantics nested circuitry (codelets). These get then shaped into a regenerated environmental survival weapon de novo. Its presence is felt first by reflex adaptive patterns as described elsewhere and then gets developmentally modified into a syntacto-semantic architecture. The inherited first stage gets modified in the newborn by mothers ‘cooings’ and facial expressions and posterior environmental sense inputs.

     This view of language generation places primeval semantics transfer at unconscious nativist levels ahead of syntactic arrangements by ‘plo’. This and the arguments in favor of cortical attractors leaves volition and free will at ‘the proximate cause’ level of control and now further defined as a 'consent' to pre-existing effector strategies with a probability of adaptive success tailor made for the individual. a as discussed in this volume and elsewhere. "A man can surely do what he wants to do. But he can not determine what he wants.", Schopenhauer once said. It was at this conjectural point that we discovered Dr. Jerry Fodor and the ‘language of thought’ (LOT) hypothesis which has given impetus and corroboration to our model, save for some minor and major disagreements as had been noted in the first volume.

     We still have not provided a marketable account of how our ‘plo’ processing module mediates the transition from an on-line sense-phenomenal (or conceptual off-line) brain codelet input (I) to a corresponding syntactically-structured representational output (O) in a systematic one to one instantiation by this special basic input-output system (BIOS) of the ‘plo’ processor. We suspect that the inherited original ‘machine language’ genetic code input, when translated from the newborn DNA gets incorporated (and modified?) into the acquired phonemic and facial expressions input from the lactating mother via cortical mirror neurons as discussed briefly in a chapter below. ‘Meaning’ to the newborn (proto-semantics) gets somehow structured into a proto-syntax in the ‘plo’ processor. The neuro-humoral reward-punishment system of Olds-Pribram (connecting nerve trunk midbrain and ‘plo’ with forebrain executive area via Medial Forebrain Bundle) may be intimately involved in the original and subsequent valence classification of environmental (internal & external) inputs. Somehow a systematic audio-visual (or other sensory) input facilitates the formation of ‘inferential’ codelet loops that, added to other relevant modular inputs (visceral brain, talking brain, non-dominant brain, etc) will configure the resultant of ‘all things considered’, a "thought". And now we add, a consented to cortical attractor. Whether this final event precedes a putative motor adaptive response or not (see Libet’s timing data) is open to debate and should not necessarily put into question the existence of a ‘free will’ for the reasons already discussed here.

     Besides tha language-based control of thought we seem to argue for, the big problem still remaining is, of course, how to explain what kind of ‘sentential’ logic structure guides the jazz pianist when improvising his music, or the artist when moving the brush over the canvas? We believe there is no conscious thought guiding that kind of performance; we discuss this problem in some detail in the first volume (chapter 19) and no significant argument has evolved since..

     How would one start laying out the groundwork for developing a model for a linguistic generation of thought/mind? Following closely on the steps of British empiricist Locke, Columbia U. Dr. J.A. Fodor had taken a first step (see "The Language of Thought," 1975). Henceforth neuroscientists and philosophers alike abandoned ship on the search for explanations on the meanings of spoken words to concentrate instead on the ‘contents’ of mental representations in the hope that therein originated somehow the ‘meanings’ of words (see Grice’s essay "Meaning Revisited,"1982). Nothing much has changed since the publication of the first volume.

     Within the scope of the ‘BPS’ model the family is the structural / functional unit of viable human existence (see Eric From’s "Man for Himself", 1947) and consequently it is not far-fetched to speculate that language may have evolved in order to ease and synchronize the correspondence in mental states between parents, siblings and one another. On the same vein, we have written a last parting chapter analyzing further the JudeoChrIslamic axiological concomitants attending current post modern social behavior. For the reasons already stated above we have to both agree and disagree with Dummet when he stated "..that ‘the fundamental axiom of analytical philosophy’ is that "the only route to the analysis of thought goes through the analysis of language." Agree because it is easier to infer from a well established language syntax structure encoding semantics than the opposite view requiring an elusive structure of mind to infer from. Yet, as we will argue, language structure is intrinsically semantics neutral, its meaning to be discovered in the mental state / representation of both speaker and listener that animate it. In so doing we must resist the temptation to confuse the map with the territory it represents, the cognition of ‘how’ with the cognition of ‘that’, the epistemology with the ontology. The worst possible scenario will be, anyway, that the resulting analysis will only translate our current grammatical description of ‘mind’ into a richer theoretical system without substantially improving on the older explanations and remaining at square one as Wittgenstein has mocked about the analytical philosophy effort. We have tried all along to identify those other fundamental concepts the diad language-->mind is necessarily related to and establishing the connections thereto.

     This analytical philosophy strategy, as described, already supposes a commitment to two important aspects of cognitive science: the content of ‘mental states’ (beliefs, desires and other intentional states) can be represented (brain-encoded) as functional isomorphs (symbolic representations) such that reasoning becomes a formal (logic) manipulation (computer processing) of such representations (symbols) according to a set of non-semantic rules (e.g., program). The credibility of such approach rests on the premise that any logic operations applicable to syntax can be either duplicated or emulated by a computer (after Turing). Implied here is that ‘mental representations’, as described, carry both syntactic and semantic properties (see Volume 1 for more on properties). The important conclusion is that thereby syntax structure programming becomes causally efficient in both the computer and the brain as long as the relevant functions can be formalized (programmed). This makes logical ‘inferences’ possible, the hallmark of reasoned thinking. This way a "Language of Thought" (LOT) or ‘mentalese’ is modeled by Fodor as discussed elsewhere in that text. It is clear that this model requires linear input sequential processing, can not explain what it is like to have a feeling (e.g., qualia) and does not explicitly spell out whether language communicates thought or participates in the formation of thought (as discussed in a Volume I where Fodor defends a ‘nativist’ idea using a combinatorial argument successfully). Furthermore, the ‘Mentalese’ model of Fodor supposes , like ours, that language precedes the formation of thought but, unlike ours, that the meaning of an assertion (its semantics) is encoded in the syntax arrangement according to a ‘propositional attitude’ structural representation. For example, if I have a thought that refers to George W. Bush and the WMD, it is because that thought is a relation to a coded mental representation that refers to the US President. If I think "Bush invaded Iraq in 2003" it is because I am in a particular functional relation (characteristic of belief) that has the content: "Bush Invaded Iraq to destroy the WMD in 2003" (e.g., Tarskian semantics). Just like we cannot turn the lights on a pictorial representation of a Cadillac, we have problems animating a linguistic representation ('propositional attitudes') with feelings. That being said, Fodor's poetry is still very interesting, the reason we attempted in this volume to linearize sensory inputs in our BPS model to make them compatible with the linear processing of language. Along similar lines, we also tried to model belief propositions but our success was limited because of the complexity of using modal logic in a probabilistic context.

     As we enunciated above we still differ in non-trivial aspects of Fodor's interpretation and believe that an in-house, inherited proto-semantic archetype precede and dictate syntax and its subsequent development according to a layering build-up of the inherited by the external influence of acquired language parameters derived initially from the mother, siblings and others. But this is just an informed intuition in its embryonic stage as was exposed in Volume I. We hold that inherited proto-semantics precede syntax which is acquired from mother & environment.

     Furthermore, propositional attitude states, that is, states that occur at some specific moment in a person's mental life, have the sort of content that might be expressed by a propositional phrase proper to the subjects natural language (see the chapter on the "Possible Structure of a Belief Proposition."). This variation still conceptualizes mental states as either tokened mental representations at the sub-personal nativist level (Fodor) or images them from natural language at the personal level (Caruthers). What is important is that it considers much more significant how the mental encoding came into being where genetic memory (implicit and unconscious as opposed to the global conscious or the Freud-Jung subconscious) levels of processing are controlling in behalf of ‘BPS’ survival imperatives. Our BPS model view may seem counterintuitive at first sight but, observing how computers carry out programmed instructions, it is easier to visualize a language generation of thought as operations performed over the mental representations in a given language than it is to extract a ‘meaning’ based on a particular structure of syntax.

     Should the syntax be universal for all human languages? We think not. The inherited proto-semantics IS, and it will be fashioned into the future syntactic structure depending on the natural language acquired as well as other mental development influences. This post-natal external stage of language development only partially reivindicates the pre-Chomskian behaviorist (classical and Skinnerian operant conditioning) understanding of language learning and consolidation. Cognitive science alone was able to explain the linguistic competence already observed in a year-old toddler with little or no experience, i.e., through internal brain mechanisms. It was the observed ability of toddlers to understand the difference between "the cat chased the mouse" and "the mouse chased the cat" or their equivalents formed by changing the position of the actors or their relationship (i.e., systematicity) and the toddler’s natural ability to generate an unlimited number of sentences / thoughts from a limited set of lexical primitives proper of the age (i.e., productivity) evidenced an innate presence of an universal grammar enabling them to –in a primitive way- formulate and confirm hypothesis. In the BPS model this is evidence of an inherited inner primeval language we call ‘genetic memory’ which we have argued before as to its brain location in the perisylvian geography we still call the ‘proto-linguistic organ’ (plo). These generalizations may not apply to other aspects of communications like sign, sound (music) or body language.

     Communication for ‘BPS’ survival is predicated upon an efficient and reliable reciprocal sharing of ‘mental states’ between a language producer and a receiver and includes linguistic and extralinguistic modes of conveyance of intentionalities, a true ‘Theory of Mind’. As we said earlier, a system of information-carrying linguistic symbols as such, in either mode, are in principle neutral in meaning content until decoded by a receiver, regardless of whether that was the intention of the producer or not. It may just as well had been unspecific. The semantic content is not intrinsic to the arrangement of symbols except for an intended or un-intended receiver who must extract its meaning if able to synchronize her mental state with the producer. We develop this theme further within the context of mirror neurons below.

     We may extrapolate further and say that DNA composition, regardless of species, carries equivalent unit ‘symbols’ (sugar, base, phosphate) and when assembled and transmitted by inheritance will not carry intrinsic information as such except for the species it was intended for who must extract it via individualized archetype activation. In this case we have to assume that, other than the unlikely heritable somatic mutations (?), the information coded into the germinal DNA was the result of a, just as unlikely, Lamarckian-like encoding of environmental survival information which gets transmitted by inheritance ("junk DNA"?) and then activated in the newborn when triggered by an equivalent relevant stimulus in the new generation. This way newly hatched chicks will react violently to a proyector slide showing a hawk in flight and not when showing a duck (by reversing the direction of same slide). This is a species-specific, semantic-laden, inherited response. A similar argument holds for the avoidance response triggered when we see (for the first time) a spider or a snake moving our way. The species-specific survival kit of multi-modal (e.g., audio-visual) code for environmental specific information constitute a genetic memory of sorts, to be activated should the same or equivalent danger cue be present in the new environment. These are solid experimental facts, regardless of their mode of inherited transmission. This is reminiscent of Grice’s ‘natural meaning’ that requires no intentionality other than that present in the mental state of the receiver. If present, following a presentation of the ‘neutral’ stimulus, a chain of reactions will ensue providing a meaningful adaptive response as the result. The environmental stimulus is also affective neutral but adaptive responses will have an affective positive, negative or alert valence. There is not such thing as a neutral affective response. This fact can be equated with our pain-pleasure affective system (see Olds, Pribram and others) associated with peri-acqueductal grey (PAG), medial forebrain bundle (MFB), hypothalamus and cingulate cortex. It is a common experience to classify sensory, body proper or dreams input according to this primitive affective state which we choose to postulate as a primitive ‘affective meaning’ tag associated with phenomenal, conceptual, qualic or motor experience. We are not now able to precise whether the input information is tagged at the receptor, afferent pathways to intermediate association neurons or at the amygdaloid complex as discussed in Volume I, but it has the salutary protective effect of screening and classifying all information input into the central brain. As we also discussed elsewhere, the amygdaloidal complex controls the relay switch that immediately activates a neuro-humoral Cannon-type response when confronted with a life-threatening stimulus or an endorphin-type euphoric response when the environmental information valence is positive. When in doubt (alert status), the organism will ‘freeze’ and wait until more contextual information arrives from the hippocampus social memory as explained elsewhere. We have continued to develop these ideas in the second Volume within the context of the structure and composition of cortical attractor basins which are being continuously updated as they evolve as probable future outcomes for the species. We believe that biological survival strategies (visceral brain) trump any other consideration when making a decision to act..except when we volitionally negate consent to a particular solution, even when contrary to self-interest as we see in heroic acts or pathology.

     The proto-linguistic organ (plo) associates combo, coupling amygdaloidal complex, hippocampus and cingulate cortex, show an early embryological development in preparation for a more delayed myelinization of primary and secondary sensory pathways converging into angular gyrus and a more complete cephalization of functions requiring communication circuits (Wernicke-Broca maturation) in coordination with an executive and adaptive-dispositive forebrain. This is the type of intrinsic brain universal grammar anlage that is posited in the newborn serving as a foundation for future linguistic development as sensory input and social interactivity gets more sophisticated inside the context of the particular natural language adopted from the parents. This way the natural language syntax structure will be learned and layered on the inherited proto-semantic structure that guides and colors its subsequent individualized evolutionary profile. This summarizes the first stage.

     Thus far there has been no overt intention to exchange information between two newborn cognitive agents, only an unconscious, stereotypical, species-specific adaptive response to environmental cues whose information content / meaning is extracted internally based on an activation of the genetic memory archetypes controlling and unleashing appropriate physiological effectors (glands, smooth and skeletal musculature).

     The second stage of linguistic development in the newborn is based on re-enforcing the proto-semantic data base by adding new elements from mother’s facial expressions, cooing sounds, baby talk and surroundings and classifying them into subsets of the three primitive affects as they become effective in reducing hunger, pain and general comfort. All this activity goes on at unconscious and subconscious levels and limited to expressing degrees of pain / pleasure affective equivalents reciprocally. The most important brain mediators in these developments are the cortical ‘mirror neurons’ discussed here and elsewhere. Thus true communication starts by extracting meaningful information from primitive environmental cues in the first stage including mimicry, both from mother’s sounds (phonemes) and facial musculature expressions (as analyzed at oculo-motor and audio-motor collicular centers) as visual, auditive, tactile and kinesthetic resolution develop further. As discussed in volume I, a primitive first order awareness, mostly sense-phenomenal awareness, will develop as soon as the newborn realizes she is different from the doll, the crib, the mother, etc. and not an extension thereof (see Piaget’s "The Development of Thought", 1977). At this stage (first year of life) Broca’s ‘talking brain’ connecting pathways are not developed sufficiently to entertain propositional arrangements of mother --> son communications, a requirement to share beliefs, a sine qua non for effective reciprocal communication and a true ‘Theory of Mind’.

     To illustrate, it has been demonstrated (Kaplan, 1989) how primitive indexicals (context-sensitive expressions) become modified by linguistic maturation of speaker as well as from extra-linguistic context experience which varies (in content and meaning) with time, location and intentions. It is important to keep in mind that indexicals are ‘sui generis’ in that their content in context A is derived from (refers to) an object in that context and not a description of A.

     Only when the toddler believes (mental state) ‘that p’ (e.g., baby is hungry) and overtly communicates ‘that p’ (body language) such that mother extracts that meaningful information from the baby’s cue and incorporates it by identities (both genetic and social memory) into her own meaning of the ocurrence, has a belief being shared. At that point they have shared beliefs sans much elaboration of linguistic proficiency. The shared information, the semantics of it all, reflects an internal state of the mind NOT an external state of the world.

     This view carries important consequences. My view of existential reality, e.g., my belief system, primitively inherited as argued, may have been influenced originally from information extracted from environmental cues but ultimately will be a ‘view’ of the internal state of my own mind, always hoping that it corresponds one to one with external reality, but NOT necessarily so! The eventual linguistic competence achieved will be the result of the contribution made by both genetic and social memories in creating a mental state -in harmony with the adopted natural language- (initially via mimicry mediated by mirror neurons) from the internal, semantically-coached combinatorial syntax architecture. Consequently, commonly shared natural language does not validate the truth value of literal linguistic meaning, even among identical twins! Identical world state is no guarantee of identical internal mental states among niche dwellers. Vive la difference!

     It is clear to us that any model of consciousness conceiving language as its genesis or exclusive conveyance must insert in its development, besides the classical neuroscientific level of explanation, cognitive (representational theory of mind, RTM), connectionist and especially quantum mechanical algorithms to fill in the gaps left by the other’s explananda. There are important conceptual areas of basic disagreements that must be negotiated, e.g., meaning, property, relations, etc. If the complexity of the challenge is overviewed under a BPS human survival optics then the relevant areas of investigation / analysis become clearly framed into one or more of the 5 classical aspects of a super-complex reflex arc: receptor, sensory circuits, interneuronal integrating circuits, motor circuits motoneuronal pool and effector. Only the retinal receptor and its associated afferent pathways to occipital V1 cortex and intermediate collateral branches to mesencephalon and diencephalon is very well documented. Likewise, the efferent arm of the arc has only been pretty well studied in the oculo-vestibular reflex analysis of Llinas and Pellionisz involving the cerebellum and neck musculature. Most elegant theoretical renditions have sprung from such approaches, e.g., Crick’s cortico-thalamic 40Hz binding theory and Churchland’s vector phase transformation theory, respectively. We do not anticipate a significant improvement on the level of research sophistication when directed at these two arms of the complex reflex arc. This leaves the interneuronal complex of integration as the natural and eventual focus of attention. The brain wetware can be considered as a compacted interneuronal phase transformational complex where sensory input gets massively transformed into motor adaptive output during normal functioning (see Glynn’s "Anatomy of Thought",1999 and Feinberg’s "Altered Egos", 2001). In this volume we argue for a closer examination of quantum theory as relevant to the probabilistic nature of cortical attractor's involvement in decision-making process.

     Once the visual (or any other receptor) deconstructs the seeming continuity of the environmental sensory scenario into digitized, discontinuous events reaching the interneuronal compact, there is a vector phase transformation and different algorithms continue the deconstruction into codelet (Kantian?) categories. The totality of the sensory codelets gets classified, partitioned and allocated different virtual or real macro-locations in the not-so-hard disk of the wetware, whether in modules or in a recurrent distributed network fashion. It becomes the task of the inter-neuronal compact to reconstruct the ‘original’ or equivalent representational scenario when called upon for (the binding problem) to integrate. The resulting integral may not necessarily provide an adaptive solution in neuropathology but will always reflect the dynamic equilibrium state of the constitutive modular elements charged with the implementation of ‘BPS’ survival strategies. Passed this test the ‘solution’ needs the intervention of executive cortical attractor basins involvement to coordinate the best fitting adaptive response of the effectors at the motor end of the reflex arc. This view is the typical functionalist picture except for the inevitable inclusion of quantum theory brain dynamics, as developed in this volume.

     Bridging the sensorimotor divide we find a theorist trying to identify a suitable algorithm appropriate to the computational task of the neurological wetware and capable to deliver an implementation task to the effectors. This is no easy task because the algorithm must satisfy isomorphic requirements of the input-output divide, a transducer of sorts. It would help if our theorist would precise the best symbol representation of the massively parallel information flow to ease the transduction from input to output. Our mind is the algorithmic symbol processor in the inter-neuronal compact. Let’s see how the argument may likely develop at the analytical philosophy level and the unavoidable constraints and paradoxes it generates in the process. But consciousness research can’t stop at the test tube and oscilloscope lab, at the tip of the iceberg’s view.

     Now comes the qualitative jump of Fodor (1981) when he proposed the view that mental states are ‘relations’ to symbolic representations. If the implied ‘meaning’ adscribed to a logic propositional construction ‘relates’ to a ‘mental state’ in se, the latter will come to inherit the semantic value and intentionality (meaning) of the construction where the syntactic arrangement determines the semantic ‘meaning’. E.g., the President (subject S) believes (attitude a) there are WMD inside Iraq (proposition p) or <Sa that p> in modal logic. A mathematical purist may argue that a strict canonical interpretation of set theory requires that an interpretation of semantics must map the relevant terms exclusively into mathematical objects, an obvious impossibility here, which argues for the inadequacy of syntax to determine semantics. A complete demonstration is beyond the scope of this essay but we can see at least that the meaning of proposition p is not identical with the meaning of its representation p*, the identity p=p* is untenable because it implies that there exists a 2 place relation between an inscription and its semantic value and further assumes the possibility of an inexistent correspondence (thought sharing) of meaning between a language producer and the receiver, unless mediated by a linguistic convention, something we argue can only be found in a genetic memory mediating interface. It may be further added that there exist many mental processes not reducible to algorithmic manipulations, especially when the argument is drawing from outside the defined problem domain and is thereby not purely inductive or processable by rule-based techniques. In the best possible scenario, that model does not provide for an ‘understanding’ of the computations and, while it may be suitable to explain a first order type of ‘awareness’, it would be useless for higher order conceptual and introspective consciousness as argued many times before. The same argument would still apply if a concatenation of linear symbolic processing is substituted by a non-serial, sub-symbolic distributed type (see McClelland’s "Parallel Distributed Processing"). Smolensky’s tensor space brings in interesting possibilities when coupled with n-dimensional space accomodation of quantum mechanical interpretations of consciousness. Some of these considerations will be discussed in this volume.

     If we focus on the transition p-->p* = what-->how we realize that for p* symbols to become a ‘mark of the mental’ their ‘content’ must have the ‘property’ of being about something else (in the Brentano sense), i.e., it must have ‘intentional’ states (e.g., desires, beliefs, hopes, etc.). One may ask, how does arranging the symbols into propositional statements animate the symbols with linguistically derived intentions, as in a computer? The program representations may have content-laden states but no independent intentionality.  Why not reverse the causality vector and posit that an intrinsic, inherited, original intentionality ‘in potency’ may realize that semantic potential via the acquired natural language tool and / or in response to appropriate environmental triggers, as we propose? Fodor’s 'Psychosemantics' is a variation of the ‘BPS’ internalist approach when it holds that the interactive causal connections of the representation with the external environmental reality it stands for provides a sort of derived ‘meaning’ that fuels the represented symbols to influence the behavior of the rest of the system! This clever explanation is in sharp contrast with that of analytical philosophers of the same ‘internalist’ persuasion who argue that intentionality need not be independently present in the physical state of a given symbolic representation, that it builds its semantic content from causal connections with other co-existing physical states (nodes) of the system (program). Both of these positions still imply that any supercomputer could have meaningful states without being necessary its being introspectively aware of its own states. These models may explain sense-phenomenal consciousness (awareness) but never a higher order type of introspective consciousness. Apparently Dennet, contrary to Searle, does not think that the introspective consciousness (self-awareness of intentionality) supersedes in importance the information-bearing, behavior-driving functionality of derived intentionality. This robotic animation with computer-derived, other directed intentions is counterintuitive to say the least. An unconscious patient (still a better computer than any built!) can not generate intentions simply because it can not attain self-consciousness, an absolute sine qua non. As Chalmers suggested, you can substitute every neuron with a silicon chip and the resulting robot, like the unconscious man, can not have qualia or generate intentions independently. Searle expressed the same concern with his now famous thought experiment, the "Chinese Room".

     But advocates of functionalism, surviving branch of logical positivism, adopt a neo-behaviorist stance when defending that a mental state is ‘what it does’, its functionality being based on its causal efficiency in producing a measurable result. Thus p = p* = p** where the result p** = neither a structural or functional isomorph of p, leaving many intermediate black boxes between the real life intention p and the observed behavior p**. This myopia of course implies that a simulation = a duplication if only the result is considered. Pain or pleasure qualia being, in this interpretation, just mental states known to be experienced by activation of their corresponding neural centers. Only in theory can we possibly isolate an independent property that depends exclusively on the way the underlying system is organized, an example of Chalmer’s principle of organizational invariance. It has been demonstrated (Siegelman, 1994) that some massively parallel connectionist distributed networks, as we would expect to find in the CNS, can not even be simulated in supercomputers. If some conclude: a. that a super computer is able to use environmental information creatively, b. that it understands and even have a conscience, and c. that evolutionary selection is predicated on overt behavior, then we can safely bet that they will be selected by evolution to succeed humans. Any takers among functionalists? :-)

     Many readers would ask, what difference does it make whether the brain bears the mind or causes the mind state? After all, their argument goes, the semantic content in representations can only be judged by the measured effects it is able to produce, it need not be of a denotational character. The computer does not rely exclusively on its manipulation of structure-sensitive language symbols, it also connects to the external world by analog transducers and correlates interactively with hard-wired chip connections and other aspects of the program. Besides, they continue to argue, do humans always understand? The truth is that humans have been largely hard-wired by nature, both internally and externally, to react, to parse and create associations between linguistic elements and their denotations, like machines do. This all may be true in part but no computer has ever been animated like Stravinsky’s Pulcinella doll and remain so independently!

     We may want to fancy splitting hairs with Fodor’s dictum that: "mental states are ‘relations’ to symbolic representations." and ask further if one can consider the undeniable physiological correlates characterizing the experience of a ‘mental state’ (e.g., anger) as a ‘property’ of an appropriate symbolic representation. The symbols must be able to instantiate their property content (e.g., anger) or at least derive it from other measurable properties that can be instantiated by appropriate manipulation of logical operations. One can code ‘is angry’ any number of ways and provide examples of its instantiation in sport figures, etc. as exemplified by measurable correlates, themselves codifiable in any number of logically quantified relations to other symbol representations (pulse, heart rate, pressure, etc.). Still the code does not have an independent life of its own and depends on an interpreter (receiver) for the instantiation to take effect. This is the easy example, what if the linguistic predicative expression is ‘sui generis’ and can not be instantiated, e.g., ‘he is an angel’, or a ‘square circle’, a ‘round square’ or a ‘virgin’? How do you define the properties of un-instantiables? Do they exist empirically or inside any space-time dimension, can they be exemplified, are they necessary or contingent, can they be individuated? We must remember from previous discussions that ‘being’ is very different from ‘existing’. Can a symbolic representation catch all of these nuances? Can they instantiate these properties minimally, with or without their affective component or qualia? If you are a neo-behaviorist or a scientist all you may care about is that, no matter how different their intrinsic properties, two or more properties are the same if they cause the same nomological or functional effect in their instances. This way a brachial plexus chemical block by injection is identical to cutting the same nerves connection to the arm you are trying to anesthetize!! Not all objects can have exemplifiable properties accurately constituted (encoded) as specified by axioms, like circles or squares where identities can be established as long as the abstract specifications in the geometry theory are met. We say that properties that necessarily have the same encoding extensions are identical, but properties that necessarily have the same exemplification extensions may be distinct, like the exemplification of the property of being ‘round’ in different objects, e.g., round squares = round circles. Empirical properties (low order logic) are handled differently from the ‘many placed’ (high order logic) 'properties' of metaphysical entities. As long as there may be a demonstrable causal effect empirical properties may be assigned higher order status. These are some of the difficulties we faced when trying to develop a propositional structure for beliefs.

     The antecedent arguments clear the way for a better understanding that the ‘relation’ between an object and its symbol representation may be properly considered as a property itself. Relations have orders or levels also, from the two place relation (e.g., <Republicans believe the President> or <the contender is taller than the incumbent>) to the ‘many argument places’ relationship that arguably give credence to symbolic representations of meanings in a computer program where the symbols are also related to other programs, hard-wired chips, transducers, sensors, monitors, etc. When the relation is to non-instantiable properties, including math constructs, metaphysical logic conclusions, etc., then the resulting conclusion or model will depreciate in credibility even when it may describe the truthful reality account. The same thing holds for propositions when considered as limiting cases of properties. Instantiations may not qualify as properties because they become their object, i.e., there are no intermediaries and they are no longer related causally. The Transubstantiation religious ritual instantiates the body of Christ in the ‘Host’ in a symbolic, non-empirical way, which truth becomes validated in those with that belief (faith).

     This preceding elaboration brings us finally to the reason why our ‘BPS’ model position that an inherited proto-semantics that precedes formal syntax structure in the generation of language and thought is more tenable than the classical causation view that reverses the vector of causation syntax--> semantics. ‘Meanings’ (‘that p’, e.g, beliefs) should be considered in all cases as complex predicates in the propositional attitude equation <Sa that p>. A syntactic structure of a complex predicate is not meant to exhibit the internal structure nuances of a complex property; but rather to evidence in a general way that property's position in the logical network of properties. An eminently structured specification like linguistic syntax should aim at becoming a natural device for singling out a specific member among a structured realm of possible entities, by identifying it by its place (its logical location) in that domain. The ‘BPS’ model makes it possible for language syntax to become that kind of device when nourished and fashioned by a genetic memory input and early environmental influences within the context of an adopted natural language. It is our belief that, unduly influenced by the successful use of complex hyperstructured predicates and structured metaphores to denote empirical, structured specifications (measurable properties) in Artificial Intelligence (AI), have driven some of the best analytical minds into the naïve faith belief that ALL properties are literally structured. We have provided examples to illustrate how even the definition of what a property is, is put into question! For all we know, the complex mental ‘properties’ themselves may not even have a tangible structure to get hold off and translate into symbols. The first chapters in this volume struggle with these complexities. It would seem as if our best neuroscience minds have not capture the difference between their observable descriptions and their mathematical logic representations thereof, between the 'what' of the description and the 'how' of the explanation, between the perceptual and the conceptual, between the ontological and the epistemological. We are convinced that they constitute an inseparable hybrid where a quantum theoretical glue interface may best show the two sides of the coin as belonging to the same epistemontological reality.

End of Prologue

p 23

Ch. 1

INTRODUCTION.

(Recapitulation)

     As noted at the Introduction of Volume I, “Neurophilosophy of Consciousness”, this treatise is all about an attempt to model a biopsychosocial (BPS) comprehensive understanding of self-consciousness seen from the perspective of theories of many types and hues encompassing the physical, metaphysical, neural, cognitive, functional, representational and higher-order aspects of consciousness. Each subset aims at different aspects of the problem and none of the theoretical perspectives in isolation suffice for explaining all of the self-evident features that we strive to understand. Consequently an ontologically rooted multidisciplinary synthesis grounded on real-time, existential ecological considerations may provide the best pluralistic map to guide future enquiries.

    Regardless of whether self-consciousness is inseparable from human life as we have defended or, as Jaynes suggested in 1974, based on ancient Greek linguistic evidence, it was not known before the pre-Homeric epics, the fact remains that thought and consciousness, in our view, play an essential role in the viability and perpetuation of the human species when confronted with an ever-changing inhospitable external environment it didn't choose to be born into. To achieve this survival goal man must harmonize his inherited biological endowments with his ongoing acquired psychic and social experiences. The brain, physical substrate of conscious activity, sorts out, categorizes and organizes the ongoing receptor sensory input such that any survival threat to the species is met with an adaptive Cannon response. The individual's psychic life is the resultant compromise between an inherited, not so flexible homeostatic body proper machinery and the constant social environmental challenges of an objective world of chaotic sensations about atemporal, acausal, asymmetric objects and events which must be given order and accommodated in a structure of time, space and causality of our choice to prevent BPS life-threatening alterations of the body dynamic equilibrium. Mental life has been charged with the psychosocial survival defense of the human species. The holistic epistemontological integration of these 3 BPS elements in a synthesis of neuro anatomico-physiological and physico-chemical data has been structured with the help of logico-mathematical tools of argumentation (see Merleau-Ponty 1945). It should not then be a surprise to find so many different piecemeal approaches to study the very different subsets of consciousness, that unique global feature so far only observed in the human living creature.

    The subsets of consciousness range in granularity from species wakefulness  vigil to further variations thereof we have called 'states' of consciousness. Species wakefulness has two variations, depending on whether its attention is engaged in a particular object / event (vigil-transitive) or a dream-like cogitation (intransitive)]. In the 'BPS' model, we made no essential distinction between the transitive, receptor-guided wakefulness and the intransitive sleep-guided Rem 'wakefulness', except for the attending adaptive motor response that is abolished during REM sleep.

    We apologize once again for having insisted so often on the clear distinctions between the different 'states' of consciousness during expositions. To that effect we have dedicated one whole chapter (Understanding the Consciousness Literature.) to establish the differences.The literature is full of semantic confusions coming from younger inexperienced investigators that have not yet sorted out the different abstract levels of argumentation possible. We have equated sensory awareness (sense phenomenal consciousness) with stereotypic reflex-adaptive responses that may operate sans qualia or the need for introspective activity. This is the type non-human species or artificial intelligence (AI) robots imitate or emulate and can be further considered as the result of a 'non-inferential' type of brain processing. The reflex responses may be very complex as when dodging multimodal obstacles while driving downhill on a familiar winding road while solving a puzzle or listening to the news as you drive. If we remember how these same environmental features have been sorted out and categorized in our brain neuronal networks for future memory retrieval in the physical absence of the same objects / events, then we should have no problem understanding how these subconscious resources may be accessed were the same driver to suddenly encounter a novel feature change like a collapsed mountain bridge, etc. Then we may 'consciously' experience sounds, colors, shapes, smells, etc. (sense phenomenal qualia) or fright, hopes, beliefs, etc. (conceptual qualia), the total experience of which we tentatively called phenomenal consciousness proper to distinguish it from a concomitant introspective assessment of the novel situation within a significant environmental context. We chose to call non-sensory qualia as 'conceptual' because, unlike most sense-phenomenal features, affective states are not stand-alone features and are usually triggered in association with more complex conceptual organization of prior acquired experiences (religion, morals, etc.) of the subject as an agent. We have defended the argument that conceptual qualia carries both inherited (amygdaloidal-mediated fear responses) and acquired affective baggage (hypothalamic / limbic / hippocampus-mediated pain, sorrow, etc.), but more important, before accessing inferential linguistic resources to structure the appropriate syntax, it requires the previous proto-semantic inherited input (proto-linguistic organ, 'plo') to formulate the introspective thought narrative sequence (inner language?). This is a variation of Fodor's HOT model of consciousness as was discussed in Volume I and briefly expanded below.

    As we ponder on these complex abstractions we find language very limited and troublesome at times. So, we must arbitrarily insist on 'awareness' as being distinct from 'consciousness'. When I become 'aware' of the road obstacles without thinking about them my sensory receptors and my muscle / gland effectors act as servo controls that run the show 'subconsciously' according to non-inferential, programmed neuronal networks, we are running on servo controlled mechanisms, a combination of genetic and acquired contingency 'survival' codelets. When the novel situation exceeds the expectations of an automatic reflex response we must 'access' higher neuronal networks (e.g., language machinery) and in the process we become consciously aware. This is not different from the situation of an olympic gymnast about to land on a high bar after a somersault. She has both inherited and acquired by training motoneuronal networks able to 'select' the appropriate nerve fibers to activate and protect the biological integrity of her body without having to make a conscious analysis and selection. Based on this self-evident account we developed our explanation on how subconsciously select from many available probable solutions in cortical attractor basins the one best adapted to solve the novel contingency. We must introspectively situate ourselves as actors in the ongoing new scenario by translating the complex proto-semantics into a sentential code which, by inner speech, elaborates the thought. 'Access consciousness' describes a pre-inferential unconscious reaching for a narrative mechanism (Broca's) to elaborate the high order thought associated with introspective consciousness. It simply makes it possible for a reflex-driven 'unconscious' phenomenal state of mind to avail itself of available, pertinent and concurrent mental states to interact with its content in the solution of the novel situation in behalf of species life preservation. This also represents a variation of Ned Block's 1995 model of 'access consciousness'. The equivalent access to a narrative, non-linguistic state of mind that brings introspection and qualia in the form of a 'stream of consciousness' is much more complex to analyze and awaits future dilucidation of asymmetric processing.

    Thus, we have unconscious adaptive responses to multimodal sensory input --> novel situation --> unconscious activation of access circuits to ongoing available and pertinent algorithms --> unconscious 'plo' pre-narrative algorithm processing into syntax structure--> inner language-->conscious thought &  unconscious elaboration of response--> motor adaptive response. It is not clear whether in the last step the thought is causally efficient in producing the result, especially after Libet's experiment but we adopt causality based on other criteria (see below).

    It should be noticed that the different appellations we chose to identify the different mental states does not necessarily commits their content to either the ontological or the epistemological perspectives. In fact we prefer to conceive self consciousness as an additional component of reality inseparable from life (as the measurable physical constituents of reality plus the associated abstractions or sets of relations among those constituent particles beyond sensory or combinatorial human resolution) like quantum mechanical or E-M fields, or even vitalism. Abstract nominalization of extrasensory or extra-combinatorial resolution of self-evident reality must be included as part and parcel of logical options, conceptual plurality is in, dynamically equilibrated inside complex manifolds accommodating referential domain divergence all converging on the single phenomenon of self-consciousness.

    To get an idea of the un-surmountable problems we have encountered in elaborating an all inclusive ontological 'BPS' model of self-consciousness we have had to bridge the physical and metaphysical epistemological accounts and accommodate both in the same hybrid manifold. It was not easy and is still inconclusive because the descriptive, ontological What, the explanatory, epistemological How, and the spiritual Why questions summarize different approaches to an understanding of self-consciousness. Your research choice will very much depend on whether you feel comfortable with reliable first person accounts or you rather cast your reputation exclusively on third person accounts (direct or indirect measurements). Both metaphysical logic ‘dualists’ and physico-mathematical 'physicalist' models ultimately rely on logical inferences and intuitions. Somehow, it is hoped that, having framed phenomenal, conceptual, narrative (sensory or linguistic varieties), access and introspective accounts into symbolic, sentential or phenomenal consciousness logic calculus, we may identify where their respective domains substantively coincide, overlap, link or non-locally interact inside the comprehensive manifold. The most elusive concept to frame has been 'qualia'. So far nobody has been able to articulate a qualia space and assign location coordinates for the different quale, whether in sense-phenomenal (representational?) or conceptual consciousness (intentional?, see Hardin 1992).

    Neither has anyone even attempted a cognitive account of the subjective qualia experience. (see Lycan 1996, Chalmers 2003, see the entry on self-knowledge). An unconscious 'awareness' of a red apple can be measured psychologically by an external planned behavior paradigm; if the awareness becomes a conscious experience the subject can match the apple redness using a color palette. It may sound like a contradiction but neither conscious or unconscious (here better called subconscious) 'experience' requires reflexive introspective consciousness because the self need not appear as an explicit element in human experiences of spatio-temporal objects, their attributes and their relations; only when their meaning and intelligibility become relevant to the subject in the context of 'BPS' survival as noted above. It is in this context that inherited and acquired memories fashion contingent strategies of adaptation by integrating the stereotypical cause--> effect routines with the improvised cognitive and intentional demands of the moment. Integration is a continuous, never ending dynamic processing by the ongoing, temporally extended subject at all levels of mental states as discussed, from local feature gathering defining a unit participant to a global assembly of all participants in a changing scenario of spatially connected interacting objects in the external environment. (See Cleeremans 2003). We need not argue that only conscious states are capable of this local / global integration, any artificial intelligence attempt to 'animate' a representative computer program of a conscious state will not make it conscious independent of the intentions of the programmer, regardless of Caruthers 2000 wishful thinking to the contrary.

    Another serious problem that seems to haunt physicalist activists is related to the 'levels of organization' of reality. Most investigators are specialists within their respective disciplines and feel increasingly insecure as they have to stray away from their secure discipline niche. If their job description (or discipline) requires them to examine diamonds before cutting them to make a living in the market they insist in being concerned about the tetrahedral arrangement of the diamond's carbon atoms, something they don't need to market the diamond. Others may go further and become obsessed with the valence angles of carbon atoms as a function of their orbital arrangement or the influence of weak orbital electron spin effects or strong nuclear gravitational effects on the orbital electrons, etc. Unless you are old enough to retire from academia or a research institution and adopt a cosmological perspective, you are wasting energies in navigating unchartered waters sans an experience compass to guide you through the troubled waters, regardless of your IQ scores. If these youngens were to find solace and time to be reflexive on the problem of interdisciplinary misadventures they would realize that our peripheral sensorium 'presents' (the What) and / or our central brain 'represent' objects or events in our existence which we manipulate inferentially by deduction (the How) but we are and remain blind to the structural / functional elements of transparency giving rise to such conscious thoughts and experiences that characterize the various mental states! Yet we insist on the certainty of the gospel poetry derived from such deductions. In our opinion, it would seem as if, semantically speaking, natures invisibility stems from the intrinsic character of the intentionality of conscious mental states as modified by previous social experience and resulting in an ongoing self adjusting, self organizing autopoiesis (see Varela 1980) that escapes our empirical and logic-deductive detection. This is as far as the ontology of consciousness has traveled thus far in providing an answer to the 'What' question. While traveling along the circumferential asymptote cycle of noumenal --> cosmological recursion we know that we have no better option for truthfullness than a probabilistic 'How' answer or a faith-based 'Why' explanation.  

    Most cognitive 'scientists' don't realize that epistemological representationalism has developed a richer but less reliable model of the virtual mental states in consciousness, the richer the model the more they become less scientific, and there is no reason to deny it. It may even be a good thing! Its reality is outside the descriptive or even the explanatory reach of scientific methodology as it relies almost exclusively on computational criteria. Yet, no one has developed a truly conscious robot as yet. Neither has anyone provided the non-gnomic bridging principles that link the physical or neural facts with facts about mental states (see Kim 1998). Any intelligible explanatory link, whether factual, gnomic or functional that extrapolates from measurable micro to observable macro-behavioral properties will always need to include the quintessential component of life or at least recognize the autonomy of biology as a special science (see Fodor 1974), the only guarantee of such model ever being autonomous (see Chalmers 2001). The transition from the physico-chemical to the psycho-physical is not continuous and remains beyond our present cognitive and conceptual capacities. As long as physicalists wear their horse blinders they will ignore the metaphysical bridge as the only one in harmony with our epistemic limitations. The physicalist dream of an inter-theoretic deduction makes as much sense as trying to reduce sociology to the quantum mechanical level of explanation! Furthermore, first person and third person perspectives are driven by inherently different semantic underpinnings. Any claim to the contrary is plain wishful thinking, e.g., Baar's global landscape model which is essentially an elegant attempt to explain 'access consciousness' and will suffice to explain unconscious awareness, never introspective self consciousness.

     Only in the 'BPS' model of self consciousness is there a place found for theology as a required constitutive social element. Nobody in the scientific world would dare ask the question of 'Why' a consciousness? That is a theological question rooted on ethical / moral principles of social conviviality. Scientist professionals describe the 'What' and philosophers of science, with the aid of metaphysic logic, explain the 'How' but only a believer is apt to propose his version of 'Why' based on informed intuitions or alleged extra-sensorial perceptions or 'revelation'. The appeal for a dualist interpretation is never as strong as when discussing the causal efficiency of thoughts. Were thoughts to be the concurrent result of an adaptive response or a post-facto residual phenomena (as Libet's 1985 experiments suggest) then dualism would collapse and phenomenal and conceptual qualia would be mere epiphenomenal events irrelevant to the physical laws controlling the adaptive response of our species to maintain 'BPS' equilibrium and we humans would be not much different from robots existing in other worlds with identical physical laws in operation. As a corollary, this attractive argument would do away with the notion of free will, especially within a narrow interpretation of 'BPS' survival strategies. It is so difficult to explain the 'aboutness' of thoughts (intentionality) that were it not for the undeniable fact  of self-evident altruistic behaviors against self-interest and contra 'BPS' survival, one would succumb to the temptation of denying the existence of 'free will'. But free will survives as will be evident when we develop further the cortical attractor basin model.

    To accommodate both versions we preserve 'free will' by assigning it veto power on the unconscious / subconscious driven intended adaptive response in behalf of a higher ineffable spiritual value, we call this form of control 'proximate causation'. If not, what other functions may phenomenal or conceptual states of mind serve the species that evolution would not have rid off already? Why consciousness? The argument assigning consciousness a smooth control and efficiency of the adaptive response implies causality as a temporally co-existent activity along with the elaboration of the motor response; as we have argued it happens when subject is presented with novel situations where species bio-psycho-social survival (BPS) is at stake.

    In a 'BPS' context, any theory of mind requires the subject not only to introspect in reflexive contemplation of self but also gain an insight into the mental states of those sharing his ecological niche, their beliefs, intentions and motivations. The entire body and facial expression language complement linguistic and artistic narratives in documenting an individual's state of mind. This way informed cooperative interactions assure social survival for the group. The Kantian chaotic world of multimodal sensations from environmental objects, their individual attributes and interactions may get sorted out and recombined with equivalent genetic or acquired stored memories according to the individual neuronal network structure / functional processing idiosyncrasies that gives us our personalities and it is only by a theory of mind that a social consensus, as it were, is achieved before collectively deciding for a course of adaptive action for the group. We have argued that the pain / pleasure reward system is intimately associated with both phenomenal and conceptual forms of consciousness and it is conceivable that different response protocols to same event may be so ingrained that social consensus among a plurality of intrinsic motivations may be difficult to attain as witnessed in the geopolitical 'balkanization' of multi-ethnic pluralities.

   In short, there may be a constellation of metaphysical / ontological theories of self consciousness, each touching on their different aspects and manifestations, some so specific as trying to look at general reality under a high power microscope, others so general as trying to look at specifics with a telescope, none trying the nearly impossible  task of articulating a common sense epistemic bridge between the physical and the non-physical aspects, with the exception of Chalmers and our Epistemontological View of Reality. As we treaded carefully along the minefield of indirect 'facts', first person accounts, inferences and explanatory poetry we tried to examine the scope of each model cast on a puzzle board to see the range of their individual extensions from a vintage point perspective and proceeded to approximate the puzzle parts as best we could fit them into a unit to achieve an integrated operational working mosaic. The most important piece of the puzzle is inspired by important variations on the 2 leading high order (HO) theories both of which requiring an ad hoc continuum between an unconscious, non inferential phenomenal state (established from either online sensory receptor perceptual input or offline memory conceptual input), an unconscious access intermediate stage, a subconscious relevant inferential, narrative state and finally a conscious high order mental state, all of which causally precedes the adaptive response (if any, as we see in dreams), as we have argued above. Our 'BPS' model approach assumes the highly controversial stance that ultimately, towards the end of that sequence, proto-semantics precede syntax structuring during the ongoing serial elaboration of the self-conscious thought (see our arguments in Volume I). We further assume that either a basic first order sensory perception (BOP), a basic first order thought (BOT) or memory conceptual input starts the process, both eventually converging on a similar neuronal pathway. This way an audio-visual external object / event perception (BOP) or an affective unexplained state (desire, belief, anger, etc.) originating from either body-proper homeostatic disturbance propioception (BOP) or pain / pleasure reward system will first be subjected to an evaluation of its potential survival threat by amygdaloidal processes described in Volume I. Meanwhile, a simultaneous slower pathway evaluates the context in which same perception is situated by utilizing hippocampus pathways as described. At this point a series of preparations for a possible adaptive motor / glandular response take place; this involves reticular activating system (attentional), hypothalamic, limbic and executive pre-frontal cortex participation as also described in Volume I. It should have been noticed that the originating affective state perception may have, by exception, required a preceding high order process (HOT) requiring self-consciousness in itself. For example, a sudden depressive feeling of guilt (BOP) may also have intentionality (aboutness) and thus needs, besides the initial amygdaloidal evaluation, accessing narrative network pathways to situate the affective feeling in context (HOT). BPS basically describes two co-existing, ongoing, online mental states, one non-inferential subconscious 'gut feeling' inner sense (BOP, a variant of Lycan's 1996 HOP) and an initially non-inferential unconscious accessing of narrative pathways leading to the eventual production of higher order thought (HOT) whose content is the feeling that oneself is the subject of that guilt experience (self-consciousness). We hope this variation does away with the need to explain inner sense or inner perceptions at the unconscious, non-inferential level, more in harmony with neurophysiology evidence. It may also explain why the object / event, whether sensory perceived or present in thought (BOP), generating a gut feeling of unexplained depression and guilt may or may not trigger an eventual high order reflexive thought (HOT) depending on its valence (pain / pleasure) and magnitude as controlled initially by the life-preserving amygdaloidal system. This gut feeling of unconscious qualia has been deemed incoherent by Papineau. Once the original perception (BOP) finds its way and persists un-explained (or pathologically explained by narrative brain) in high order thoughts, we are dealing with an emerging case of mental health.

    Details on the inner neuronal workings of the 'BPS' model described are found in Volume I but in general they draw heavily from Edelman, Damasio and Llinas models molded to fit a 'BPS' approach where we find it un-necessary to distinguish between dispositional or occurring higher-order thoughts (Caruthers 2000) because, while temporally appearing as 'occurent', in reality there were various populations of neuronal network alternatives in cortical attractor basins at the 'disposition' of subjects who subconsciously isolated the appropriate adaptive alternative based on preferred pathways along weighted synaptic alternatives established on 'BPS' survival prerogatives criteria. 

     The careful reader may have noticed that while we had been trying hard for an ontological definition of self-consciousness based on neurological, neurochemical and neuroscience criteria in general, it has remained elusive to fit inside a cognitive model straight jacket. Not even 'qualia', of which self-consciousness may arguably be considered a subset of, has revealed its constitutive secrets. At that point the neuroscientist has to make a qualitative jump into trading ontological certainty for a lesser granularity epistemological representational certainty. Not all known facts about consciousness can be represented in cognitive theories, the ontological 'What' will always be superior in quality than cognitive representational 'How' or any speculative theological 'Why'. Dennet and Baar's Global Workspace theory are essentially a physicalist-oriented representational accounts of 'access consciousness' and, like all cognitive theories, have much to contribute in the simulation of the unconscious state. A virtual mental state, where attentional and working memory scenarios play important roles, have but very little to say about self-consciousness. It should be clear that any cognitive model must integrate with neural correlates to market the idea among neuroscientists. The required bridging of analog computer programs of reentrant cortical loops of Edelman with neurophysiological data coming from cortico-thalamic electrophysiological activation (see Crick-Koch, Llinas 2001), neurochemical NMDA synaptic data or QM theory is very challenging. In our opinion fMRI confirmation of Damasio's clinical data on fronto-limbic nexus or visualization of online fronto-mesencephalic loops of monitoring activity prior to the elaboration of an adaptive response (Gray 1995) will tie in with Edelman and Llinas work to give the neural theories a decided advantage at least in an understanding of unconscious phenomenal 'consciousness' (awareness). The ever present affective component mediating the conscious mental state and its relation to the pain / pleasure peri-acqueductal gray--> hypothalamus--> frontal cortex axis along Medial Forebrain Bundle  MFB remains a puzzle to be resolved.

     We have seen in the physics lab how two resonant oscillators communicate at the speed of light through air across big distances when one of the oscillators reaches a critical resonant frequency. This response may provide an explanation for the apparent simultaneity we often see in neuronal processing, effector responses and computers. Can we then explain consciousness according to a quantum physics protocol? Nothing could behave more counter intuitively than quantum mechanics at the Planck micro dimension level. Yet familiar EMF propagate at counterintuitive speeds and distances and do many counterintuitive things some of which we can indirectly measure, others we can barely believe they can exist like zero point gravity, non-locality or 'entanglement'. We personally believe, like some others, that an alternate faster-than-an-action-potential propagation speed can be also achieved by moving the EMF along the chemical bonds  of bound or structured water ubiquitously found in the cellular milieu. Besides speed of propagation, quantum mechanical (QM) systems act holistically because their associated particles continue interacting even when separated at long distances, as if they remained 'entangled'. This may well be the un-articulated mediation in the Penrose-Hameroff micro-tubular model. However, their explanation is based on the quantum-mechanical-like selective collapse of a wave function from a superposition of multiple probable states to a single state, as it happens in QM systems when there is an attempt at observation or measurement. The collapse triggers a coherent flow controlling neuronal activity, similar to the coherent flow measured in Bose-Einstein condensates. In this volume we follow up on these ideas in developing further the BPS model.

    It is usually at this point where the uncertainties borne out of the probabilistic nature of QM systems lead others to look further into non-empirical criteria, a qualitative jump, as we enter into the metaphysical domain looking for complementary explanations. Enter the substance and / or property dualistic models of consciousness. Detractors from these views fail to see that the 'ontology' of physical reality at the fundamental, quantum mechanical level is really informational or cognitive-theoretic (it from bit) where the ontology of psycho-physical invariants will have to settle for inferred metaphysical logic descriptions. We strongly suspect that  QM theories will treat self consciousness and its inseparable life feature as a fundamental feature of physical reality whose intrinsic monadic attributes access reflexive, high order states of consciousness (see Russell 1927, Stapp 1993).

End of Ch. 1                                   

p 34
 

Ch. 2

Understanding the ‘Consciousness’ Literature.

 (To know something supposes an act of the understanding, i.e., when we experience an object or event and then are able to distinguish it. )

(Fractal tori)

INTRODUCTION.

     The physical brain and the metaphysical mind are so inexorably intertwined one with the other in their functionality that they become an inseparable hybrid unit. What we know about the brain is the result of direct observations, simulations in the laboratory or metaphysical logic inferences therefrom, especially when dealing with relevant aspects beyond the materiality of the physical brain or when the complexity resides outside the limited resolution of the brain’s own sensory or computational capacities. Consequently, whatever perspective we wish to examine about the mind must always keep the brain, however indirectly, in proper focus lest we end up in a fantasy-land dissertation / explanation or a poetic exercise. All multidisciplinary narratives carry along the lingo typical of their individual discipline components. Consciousness is no exception.

     From the very outset we should distinguish between the explanation of the philosopher and the description of the practicing scientist. It is much easier to make credible ‘descriptions’ of observables from a science-based knowledge of brain function than to ‘explain’ the brain from a philosophy-based analysis of the mind, especially so when the philosopher is unfamiliar with the brain. Both approaches are ultimately inference-based and the analyst needs to have some basic familiarity with the most complete and fundamental theory of matter that of course includes brain matter, i.e., quantum theory. As it turns out, theoretical physicists are in reality natural philosophers, less concerned –in consciousness studies- with descriptions than with explanations, for the obvious reasons attending any study of complexity. It is always preferable –because of credibility- to discuss the intangible mind from the perspective of empirical facts about the brain than the reverse; but it should be clear that this is only a pedagogical convenience and not an absolute necessity. That being the case, it behooves students of consciousness to familiarize themselves with the lingo of complexity studies, Wittgenstein’s warnings about language semantics and a working knowledge of quantum theory and logic. In the interest of brevity we will be selective in the choice of examples to illustrate the point.

ARGUMENTATION

     Even among prominent neuroscientists we often find a clear category confusion between an epistemological explanation and an ontological description, like we say “confusing the (epistemological) map with the (ontological) territory.”. This is especially so among practicing physicists and engineers whose formative training emphasized, as it should have, on the practical solution of problems with a focus on pragmatism (science philosophers in ‘akadummy’ retire early.) What that kind of formal training didn’t emphasize was that ALL science is essentially, inherently , unavoidably subjective because WE humans are the observers of the not-so 'objective' reality and cannot dissociate the observer from the observed, a direct consequence of the hybrid nature of existential reality. Consequently our observations and conclusions are as good as the resolution capacity of our sensory receptors and the resolution of our brain combinatorial capacity to permute, combine, sort, etc. brain neuronal network representations of the observable data; very limited indeed when compared to sense resolution in other biological species and machine digital computation. To this human species limitation we add our inborn curiosity about our origins and destiny that forces us to intuit that there IS a reality out there beyond those limits of resolution and we naturally extend our conclusions beyond the material reality of the observed empirical phenomenology; enter metaphysics (e.g., mathematics or logic) as a 'sine qua non' component of the physical structure of reality. Many practicing scientists, not so much in denial as not being properly educated, would even deny the relevance of metaphysics to their disciplines!

     To make sense of the consciousness literature one must therefore be very attentive to the implied epistemological assumptions when taken as facts, the implied level of organization (conscious, subconscious, unconscious, etc.) and often the neuro-physiological level of organization being either described or explained (cellular, molecular, atomic, etc.).

     Once a consciousness student realizes that brain matter is subject to the same quantum influences as any matter anywhere else in the material world, the obvious focus would have to be, inevitably, ultimately to describe or explain how may that non-physical mind be causally efficient in driving the physical brain into adaptive motor responses, if at all. This constitutes the very basis for the claimed existence of a human ‘free will’ in what seems to be a perfectly deterministic world, even when the behavior of empirical macro objects and events are more often than not statistically determined. At the Planck level of organization (also called the microphysics level) the indeterminism of individual quantum events is likewise constrained by statistical laws. The new frontier in consciousness research unavoidably would have to focus on this level of organization when exploring how quantum field theory may mediate as a possible special ‘semantic glue’ bridging the physical world determinism we witness and describe, the epistemic interpretations we offer to explain them and the conscious free will that participated (or not) in shaping it; as we have discussed in a previous paper on a hybrid concept of existential reality (see also Stapp). In this investigative effort we must be especially aware of the ubiquitous temptation for the exclusive use of quantum theory interpretations of consciousness as pure metaphor by some proponents who spend no effort to define e.g., how the mental discernment that we experience preceding the execution of ‘free will’ can be analyzed in terms of its quantum equivalent in entanglement, superposition, collapse or complementariness, etc.,  as it happens in other specific empirical situations, e.g., Froehlich’s non-linear coupling of biomolecular dipoles in the microwave region (see below for some other brief examples). It is also important to ascertain what resources (mathematical, experimental, first person narratives, etc.) do published accounts use to view any alleged quantum correlation –observed or inferred- between mind and brain.

     Recent literature has speculated on how may quantum field theory be consistent with a human free will. Physical determinism and conscious free will -and their consequent existential implications therein generated- have important socio-dynamic questions that remain un-answered. To follow this interesting debate we need to evaluate the resources offered to back up any claim about the alleged correlations between the empirical measurements and the deductive conclusions. For example we need to examine how close this mind-body relationship is, is it assumed, inferred, observed or measured with instruments? Is the brain considered identical with the mind (monism), similar or separate entities (dualism)? We say that there is a natural supervenience of the mind with the brain. Notice immediately that a supervenient correlation implies a dependence relation between the properties or facts about the mind and properties and facts about the brain, correlation being a descriptive term with empirical relevance. Notice also however that causation, so important in the empirical sciences, is simply a relationship between a cause and an effect (or result) whether an event, object or state. Sandwiched between the causal agent and the result there may be a third hidden entity that both share simultaneously without any causal interaction being involved. An explanation is only an epistemological / theoretical attempt to find meanings (practical or not) in the observed and described correlations. Causations are essentially unidirectional and not always reversible correlations (except in recursive cyclings) between two or more systems involved. To illustrate physical causation we usually speak of the four fundamental kinds (electromagnetic, weak, strong and gravitational) of interactions which just explain the empirical correlations that are observed in physical systems. Notice that even an accurate description of an observable object or event ('What’) is NOT necessarily conditioned to result from a direct causal relationship (usually an inferred explanation), not to mention the ‘Why’ of the object / event presence (usually justified in the theological domain).

     If and when we speak of a strong or absolute reduction of mind events, where claims are made that all conscious states and properties can be formally reduced to the material domain (materialism) and specifically to physics (physicalism), we mean we have approximated the dependence further with a resulting formula, symbol or algorithm, what is termed a ‘logical supervenience’, a rare situation indeed sometimes seen in e.g., geometry. Without such proof any claims of ‘reduction’ (horse blinder approach) means that knowledge of the brain alone is necessary and sufficient to understand the mental domain, e.g., cognition. When limits to a reduction are recognized we speak of ‘weaker’ reductions; like when describing the empirical fact that the visual cortex V1 increases its glucose uptake when some object is flashed into the retina of a subject -as indicated by a PET scan- This does not establish an unequivocal causal relationship and never explains the why. Physicists describe the ‘How’ while metaphysicists explain the ‘Why’ as noted above. There may be natural, repeatable, falsifiable and observable facts in a correlation but this does NOT establish a logical supervenience. See Chalmer’s “The Conscious Mind”. Tree apples always fall to the ground and the mind may consistently ‘cause’ an observed brain response but that does not imply necessarily an interactivity that can be empirically measured and described, let alone logically explained, e.g., what is life, gravitation, the mind? Anyone thinking that DNA can explain life,..... better think about it again.. The complexity of describing how a physical brain may interact with a non-physical mind brings into the scene the monistic approach, as we mentioned above, which considers the knowledge of the brain as necessary and sufficient to understand the mind states for them considered as ‘epiphenomena’. The eliminative materialism of the Churchlands is an extreme monistic approach that wouldn’t even consider the mind-brain correlations as existing.

     An epiphenomenal mental state is not to be confused with an emergent state in that the latter does not predicate its existence exclusively on that of the brain substrate and may have an independent origin (dualism). Contemporary dualism is a modified version of the classical Cartesianism that viewed reality as consisting of 2 disparate ‘parts’, a type of ‘substance’ dualism in the form of a thinking mind and extended matter. To escape the characterization of the mind as either a ‘part’, substance or ‘being’ some prefer to speak of a ‘functional’ dualism. In our own biopsychosocial (bps) model of consciousness we have adopted by reference the Kantian version of dualism as modified to accommodate a neutral ‘psychophysical’ interface where quantum theory may play a substantial role in explaining their natural supervenience in terms of a hybrid reality unit. In it we find the empirical sense phenomena and the subsequent transcendental noumena which the brain elaborates when explaining, representing and understanding the empirical phenomena. There are various types of dualism, e.g., in Chalmer’s psychophysical model where information plays a dominant role corresponding to our modified view of Kant’s model. The CTMU model of Chris Langan banks heavily on a universal syntax information model. The hybrid model of reality gives birth to an interesting paradox for the ingrained physicalist who must swallow hard the fact that quantum theory is the most successful model of matter based mostly on axiom-based mathematical logic inferences (explicate, first person account domain) about our limited empirical observations (implicate, third person account domain)!

     Is quantum theory science or philosophy?? Only the open-minded knows better than excluding the metaphysical domain from science and, at the same time accepts the fact about his sensory and brain-computational limitations. Metaphysics is NOT dead! This should never be construed as an exhortation to abandon the laboratory where science is born, just the opposite, to talk about consciousness requires being familiar with the physical brain substrate wherein ‘resides’ the elusive mind and the metaphysical logic to extend the comprehension of that being observed and / or computed.

     To illustrate the possible practical importance of the preceding argument we will briefly consider a model that describes the transition from the continuously evolving Schrödinger wave function quantum state to a discontinuous ‘eigenstate’ b of the measured observable B, i.e., the reduction or ‘collapse’ of a reversible state (wave function) --> irreversible state (eigenstate) with defined probabilities (of future outcomes). This is an example of how an instant conscious volitional mental act (of choice) can be framed into the mathematical “projection postulate” of von Neumann when the brain mediates the position between the observer and the observed, i.e., between the sense-phenomenal event and the effector response formulation by the observer from available alternatives as we discussed in a previous paper. How these claims may be rooted on measured observables Stapp, Beck and Eccles elaborate, e.g., on how the measurable macro level quantum uncertainties originating during pre-synaptic / post-synaptic information transfer at neuronal synapses (conformational macromolecular changes in ion channels, neurotransmitter exocytosis, etc.) can be amplified (phase, resonant, amplitude, spin coupling) to generate measurable entanglements of brain activity (EEG, MEG). The volitional conscious event is a post discernment choice among the probable alternatives in cortical attractor basins. As discussed elsewhere, we believe that the complex act of integrating all relevant factors (biological, psychic and social) and their re-segregation into neuronal assemblies of possible alternatives of choice is all done unconsciously, the conscious act been relegated to a consent to the alternative most compatible with a positive emotional qualia (happiness, relaxation, euphoria, etc.) as subconsciously isolated, i.e., each potential event has an associated qualia experience or intrinsic actuality that becomes its recognized label at the moment of choosing (actualizing a probable state co-generates the qualia experience); we called it ‘proximate causation’. This neuronal-based mental state arguably would qualify as ontological in nature which justifies the characterization of its reality as ‘hybrid’ in nature. It is this ‘intrinsic actuality’ that Stapp argues as ‘ontic’ as opposed to ‘epistemic’ in nature. This way the integration / synchronization of the neuronal synaptic events in the assemblies become the neural correlate of ‘unconscious’ events at the discernment stage prior to the conscious superposition that precedes the collapse of the associated wave function, as explained. Now, where the probability of a potential act pre-existed in a cortical attractor, is now materialized in the present. To the trained neurophysiologist there is no mystery in the common place observation of how both inherited and acquired BPS factors influence the plasticity of neuronal networks connectivities at unconscious levels in the form of complex physiological reflexes triggered into conscious reality by just willing its occurrence...or inhibition (act against self preservation). Once a sense-phenomenal event activates a relevant neuronal assembly, the attending bio-molecular synaptic events, among other things, induce a symmetry breakdown and propagation over the brain of the bosonic modes thereby generated (mesons, photons). The dynamically ordered / correlated states produced in the neuronal networks represent the entanglement or coherent state that precedes the collapse (choice).

     The unconscious integration of BPS constitutive elements is guided by their survival value to the human species on an individual experiential basis. This being said, is it still far-fetched to say that every conscious mental state has an associated 'physical' counterpart in the form of the collapsed eigenstate. This idea may be too much for the physicalist mind set to stomach and we suspect that they fear that placing a hybrid entity / being between epistemology and ontology is mind-boggling, especially if reality ultimately should be reduced to a universal syntax, e.g., CTMU model. The alert reader will immediately notice the logical gymnastic effort to assign physicality to a mind / information entity to avoid the closure in the physical domain obstacle when describing its interaction with the physical brain.

     A reciprocal, dynamic, causal and intentional interactivity between the physical brain and non-physical mind is more than anyone, except the intellectually daring, bargained for. In our opinion Freeman’s data on the olfactory system of rabbits –as discussed elsewhere- is convincing argumentation that quantum field theory and Beck’s stochastic resonance amplification can be literally applied to material brain states. By contrast, the Penrose-Hammerof model of consciousness is predicated upon a ‘postulated’ coherent entanglement of the ubiquitous tubulin molecule (changes in their conformational states in neuronal microtubules) caused to subsequently collapse under the influence of another ‘postulated’ gravitation-induced objective state reduction, the latter equated as a willed act of consciousness. This approach requires modifications of both quantum theory and general relativity to accommodate ‘quantum gravity’ and ignore the concept of time as we know it, and for now it won’t fly.

     One very interesting leading-edge concept is slowly evolving about the role for the psycho-physical neutral interface as championed by Jung and Pauli. This approach gives ‘ontic’ physicality to information. However, it should be noted that this questionable epistemological treatment of information is a significant departure from the familiar syntacto / semantic Shannon type information theory where recursive parsing among Chomskyan partition alternatives would become irrelevant.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 

     Most practicing physicists and engineers approaching retirement age and whose formal training and current practice emphasized, as it should have, on the practical solution of problems with a focus on pragmatism experience conceptual difficulties in accepting the possibility that the ontic randomness of measured quantum events may well provide room for an analysis of mental causation, i.e., the possibility that conscious mental acts can influence brain behavior. They refuse to abandon the dogma of ‘closure in the physical domain’ notwithstanding the real challenge presented by a quantum theory operating at a Planck level of organization they can’t either see or measure directly a la Newton. Only mathematicians, ‘akadummys’ or HiQers have taken the painful task of being open-minded, revolutionary and willing to spend the time and effort to cross disciplines and learn their associated lingoes and other linguistic nuances, e.g., modal logic where a syllogism has three variations. It is not often that practicing scientists see a syllogism other than as an argument consisting of stated premises being followed of necessity by a conclusion that is different from the stated premises, if the premises (universal statements) are true (for all, some or one), the conclusion must also be true (categorical syllogism). But now, more often than not, in the hypothetical syllogism, both premises (wave or particle) and / or conclusions (probabilities) may be conditional, e.g., where Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle applies. More troublesome are the disjunctive syllogisms where the leading premise (e.g., behaves as a wave or a particle) may find the other premise denying one of the previous alternatives and the conclusion being the remaining alternative. Like it or not, the classical logic analysis based on Boolean Algebras has given way to quantum logic to accommodate mathematical representations of quantum mechanical, mind-boggling measurements (e.g., slit experiments) in the physics laboratory.

     Intoxicated by the symbolic celebration of the phenomenal successes of Newtonian mechanics where the classical dynamics of a particle position, momentum, energy, etc. nicely fit into a commutative type algebraic representation in Boolean algebra, the practicing physicists can’t easily conceive of a non-commutative, non-Boolean quantum logic to explain the elusive probabilistic behavior of particles in the atomic and subatomic Planck level of organization as manifested in the laboratory measurements of observables. As it turns out this approach is the best fit for explaining fundamental processes attending particle dynamics in the universe, notwithstanding the fact that this way the certainty becomes a probability and measurements seem uncertain and irreducible, like those complexities we find when analyzing life and consciousness, c’est la guerre about existential realism. The quantum analysis captures the ‘state’ during an instant measurement as represented by the time-dependent state function (state vector). The evolution of the ‘state’ as a function of time (based on observable measurements of position, momentum, energy, spin, etc., e.g., slit experiments) is described by the Schrödinger equation. For a given possible value of an observable, it can be calculated the probability of it becoming its true value if measured, see Born. As it happens, one can not simultaneously evaluate the linear acceleration of a particle in a given direction and also simultaneously ascertain its position in the same direction (Heisenberg uncertainty principle), thus we settle for characterizing the ‘state’ at an instant in time, an incomplete but realistic description of the real physical state ‘in se’. More uncanny has been the observation that two such systems can interact and then separate infinitely BUT remaining correlated (tangled, synchronized!), what we now call ‘non-locality’. This requires that alterations in one get transmitted to the next at speeds exceeding that of light itself!, just what we need to explain the speed of thought!!  This is another instance of our human species limitations to acquire knowledge about ‘things’ we can’t see or precise their location, especially as it moves at the speed of light or higher.

     Our existential reality, at any level of human comprehension, is a ‘derivative reality’, one that is logically inferred from the ‘invisible original’ by a differential calculus of variations and also by deductive integration of their ‘invisible’ constitutive parts until both sensory and computational invisibilities acquire a ‘critical mass’ that makes their cognitive intuition at the conceptual and sense-phenomenal level possible. Thus there are things ‘in se’ (beyond our cognitive capacities) and things ‘derived’ both conceptually (by analysis) and empirically (by sense-phenomenal synthesis). Materialist scientists ignore these facts especially how human efforts to compensate for these inherited limitations have historically manifested in theologies. Rather than ignore the role they play in existential reality it would make sense to deal with something that just won’t go away, if history is a reliable witness. Like Will Durant said: “Those who ignore the lessons of history will be condemned to repeat it.”

This brief survey is an open invitation to studious scientists and materialist philosophers to seriously consider the possibility of naturalizing epistemology (see Quine) and considering existential reality as hybrid in nature…. Or, should the foundations of quantum theory be reconsidered as no more than just information about the invisible reality ‘in se’?, (see Fuchs).

Deltona Lakes, Florida   Winter 2006

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

 1. Beck, F. (2001). Quantum brain dynamics and consciousness. In The Physical Nature of Consciousness, ed. by P. van Locke, Benjamins, Amsterdam.

 2. Beck, F., and Eccles, J. (1992). Quantum aspects of brain activity and the role of consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

 3. de la Sierra, A. (2006). The Possible Quantal Interface and the Hybrid Nature of Reality. Part I. Telicom Vol. XIX, No.1

 4. de la Sierra, A. (2006). The Possible Quantal Interface and the Hybrid Nature of Reality. Part II. Exploring the Interface. In Press

 6. Fröhlich, H. (1968). Long range coherence and energy storage in biological systems. International Journal of Quantum Chemistry.

 7. Fuchs, C.A. (2002). Quantum mechanics as quantum information. In Quantum Theory: Reconsideration of Foundations, Växjö University Press, Växjö.

 8. Grush, R., and Churchland, P.S. (1995). Gaps in Penrose's toilings. Journal of Consciousness Studies.

 9. Hameroff, S.R., and Penrose, R. (1996). Conscious events as orchestrated spacetime selections. Journal of Consciousness Studies.

 10. Jung, C.G., and Pauli, W. (1955). The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche. Pantheon, New York.

 11. Neumann, J. von (1955). Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

 12. Penrose, R. (1994). Shadows of the Mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 13. Penrose, R., and Hameroff, S. (1995). Journal of Consciousness Studies.

 14. Pessa, E., and Vitiello, G. (2003). Quantum noise, entanglement and chaos in the quantum field theory of mind/brain states. Mind and Matter.

 15. Stapp, H.P. (1999). Attention, intention, and will in quantum physics. Journal of Consciousness Studies.

End of Ch. 2                                                         

p 46

Ch.3

AN 'EPISTEMONTOLOGICAL' ARGUMENT.

p 54

Ch. 4

p 81

Ch. 6

   A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF BELIEFS.

INTRODUCTION.

     Can beliefs qualify as propositional-type knowledge? Must beliefs be conscious-processing activities? Do we make judgments based on propositional logic processing when recognizing a person, a place or when reflexly initiating the proper motor command to an effector controlling muscle / glandular activity? To explore these possibilities we should be able to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions  that must be met to make belief a syntacto-semantic structure subject to a propositional processing such that when a subject S believes (b) that p, it is identical to when the same subject S knows (k) that p, i.e., “S (b) that p” = “S (k) that p” where p represents the proposition-encoded belief (b).

ARGUMENTATION.

    When analyzing beliefs we are at the very outset faced with their ‘truth value’ content as determined by their probability of being either falsified and / or successfully reduced to a sentential or symbolic logic representation. As it turns out to be, in our experience both S’s knowledge and beliefs are ultimately in the mind of the beholder. If so, can we count on the cognitive process that produced the belief as a coherent and reliable guide to 'truth'? Unless we characterize the ideal ‘beholder’, we are also faced with the question as to whether it is justified to generalize that all humans have same knowledge about themselves and their empirical reality. Take color-blind subjects to illustrate how beliefs may be formed in them about colors, e.g., the sense-phenomenal occurrence of ‘redness’. Is it possible to believe in something that is false? But color blind Daltonism subjects, e.g., one physicist, knows and believes about the redness of apples! What they cannot ‘describe’ ontologically they can ‘explain’ its sense-phenomenal reality epistemologically. At this point we wish not to complicate matters further when considering if, for those with normal color vision, ‘redness’ is ontologically an empirical being with a measurable independent ‘essence’ or a mere abstract, epistemological ‘existence’, a la Heidegger based on a brain representation? The ontological sense-phenomenal description of that visible part of the light spectrum and the successful epistemological explanation of its correlation with the energy frequencies of other constitutive components, visible or not, more than compensates for the lack of direct sense knowledge of ‘redness’ and an epistemologically-derived belief reliably takes the place of an empirical sense verification. Is this physicist as justified in substituting his direct empirical knowledge of ‘redness’ for a belief in the abstract 'reality' of a red color as when a believer explains the existence of a JudeoChrIslamic God? How else could this color blind physicist understand and deal with electro-magnetic spectrum theory and its many derived concepts? Likewise how else can a believer explain the awesome experience of birth, life, self-consciousness, cosmological order or negentropic evolution? Both our believer and physicist will have a hard time explaining that he ‘knows that p’ without ‘believing that p’ or vice versa! Same thing happens to believers in God or in the invisible sub-Planck order! Our empirical, falsifiable and sense-phenomenal reality seems constant because of our well documented limitations in our species sensorium and brain-computational capacities. Only our epistemological explanations may change our knowledge / beliefs as historically witnessed by the cumulative nature of science evolution. Meanwhile knowledge / beliefs are ever invisibly changing at the lower n-dimensional granularity levels of organization of sub-Planckian quantum dynamics.

     Does it then mean that, like in the physicist case above, only when there is enough correlated falsifiable evidence in its support that a belief will integrate well with independent relevant evidence about same issue, that theological knowledge can be justifiably and / or reliably claimed? What mental or biological processes in S, if any, may properly and reliably substitute for such empirical support evidence?

     Suppose we accept as self-evident the experimentally demonstrated ‘freeze response’ reflex in humans (or any flexion reflex for that matter) when experiencing un-explained sensory stimuli being judged a-priori by our brains to be potentially life-threatening; is this neuronal network processing of sensory information considered true knowledge even when it was inherited, never learned in the past and also unconscious? Can S state his belief that p (e.g., that flexing his fore-arm away from the hot stove will prevent his hand from getting burned)? Is that belief justified true knowledge? Suppose further, contrariwise, that ‘S belief that p’ is premised on one or more false measurements or deductions? Sometimes we may rely excessively on the cognitive process that produced the belief, as when, e.g., S promised a colleague attending same Mensa event to sell his lot in Florida before a witness, now unable to locate. A month later S develops a mild un-diagnosed retrograde amnesia and refuses to honor his commitment in a sworn declaration after a negative polygraph test based on his honest belief that such promise never happened. Did S commit a punishable act of breach of contract or perjury? Did he have ‘knowledge’ of an event existing in a memory he cannot now retrieve to consciousness? To make things worse, S can produce good testimonial evidence for the intrinsically false proposition from honest friends attending that same event. If we become for a moment aware of the serious limitations of our sensory resolution in providing us a reliable account of our empirical reality, imagine the truth value of memory, as noted, and such higher processes as intuitions, introspections, etc. as reliable sources of knowledge we take as true beliefs. An alert judge may notice that while S theory of his case is not reliable (his then un-diagnosed amnesia) it was nonetheless justified. From an evidentiary viewpoint this justification is the result of evidence (e.g., witnesses) submitted by defendant S. Here evidence-based belief = knowledge and both are false! As noted, we may have provided the necessary but insufficient conditions for knowledge to be achieved, yet an operational belief is the next best available. Either you rely on S’s internal brain / mental processes as providing the justification / conclusion at time t or on things external to S as when S justifiably but unreliably (as proven from external evidence unknown to S) believes that p at time t. This situation is sometimes called the ‘Gettier problem’.

     Somehow, perhaps without being aware of it, neuroscientists of the physicalist faith blindly adopt the philosophical naturalism moral stance and thus insist on external evidence on which they can rely before they may conclude that ‘S believes that p’ = ‘S knows that p’. However, the scientific methodology, so useful in the handling of the observable objects / events of the natural world cannot be the exclusive arbiter of truth values (see Harman) when complex axiological and moral issues are being analyzed. It is doubtful that their certainty or even their probability can always rest / supervene exclusively on substantive ontological specifications as we have seen above. This would be the ideal situation where both approaches may agree. Thus far the closest we may ever come to a reliable belief production in a mental state is using f-MRI or PET Scans, like relying on a description of the details of a murder committed inside a closed house based on recorded sounds of gun blasts coming from the house while observing a man running away from the house on a video take from a hovering TV news helicopter! Now, should the TV journalist be expected to guarantee the truth of his assertion that a murder has been committed? What if his justification for his belief production is based on his true knowledge that the man fled through a window leaving the dead woman alone? How then may true belief become unquestionable knowledge to all concerned? Is it enough to be internally justified, relying on the subjects ability to maintain normal mental processes? Or do we need external proof that the latter is true? Would anyone question a recent amputee’s honest belief that he still feels pain and can move the absent leg? After all, no mental reflective activity would make amputee realize otherwise (phantom leg syndrome); is he in possesion of knowledge about his leg based on his honest (but untrue) belief, is he unreliably abnormal? What then is more important, to assign beliefs a truth value based on external corroboration (read science methodology) or on reliable, reflective mental activity? The equation ‘S (b) that p’ = ‘S (k) that p’ depends on an analysis of how are our beliefs formed. Do we need a new logic to represent knowledge with a different probability of being true than propositional logic now provides? On the sub-Planck level of organization, are all the probabilities of future scenarios based on quantum dynamics considerations of true knowledge on which to base our beliefs?

     If we regard beliefs as being true, how are they formed? Ordinarily we think of beliefs as mental attitudes toward objects, their relationships (when present), or events. Since beliefs are expressed in sentences, whatever it is that they express we consider it as being a propositional attitude as noted earlier. Since computers cannot independently generate their own language they can only be useful to ‘emulate’ belief or knowledge systems. There are many convincing Turinoid arguments to support the notion that our brain neuronal networks operate like main frame computers, yet, like in computers, there is still a black box that contains the explanation of the who, what (or where) programs the brain computer to perform such formidably complex task well beyond humans capacity to resolve cognitively.

     Sometimes it becomes convenient or unavoidably necessary to sketch a diagram of an engine, a geographical region in a territory or a brain topology or a computer circuitry than to bring any of them to the limited confines of a laboratory or conference room auditorium for detailed study. In so doing we are acting as human transducers by translating one ephemeral sense-phenomenal perception of, e.g., the Texas territory, into a more manageable map form of representation we can now measure and reduce to symbolic or sentential elements, coordinates, etc. or other markers of the perceptual fact we can now manipulate logically. How should we go about it? As we discussed elsewhere, if it were the true case that, e.g., thoughts are causally efficient to generate language, it would almost become an impossible task to analyze such well known facts about language on the basis of something as elusive as thoughts or their invisible representations thereof. Because human curiosity about its origins and destiny must be satisfied most linguist scholars yield to the inevitable task of explaining the invisible and mysterious thoughts on the basis of a preceding well documented and tangible language generation model. Once established that language causally precedes thoughts we now add, then beliefs structured in language code can be causally efficient in producing the corresponding behavior. In our BPS model we try to avoid this enigmatic problem by postulating an operational recursive co-generation of both language and thought. Do we –or anyone else, we suspect- then have a real choice but to use a representational approach to analyze beliefs? This way the perceptual sense-phenomenal fact can be transduced to a propositional language representation (Hebbian neuronal networks?) that can be stored and retrieved / recalled for parsing as needed. Two or more such perceptual elements are thus subjected to combinations or permutations with inherited or acquired data bases giving rise to conceptual elements. Thus the knowledge of the perceptual fact and the conceptual elements recursively combined can give rise to beliefs about the perceptual object / event in relation to the existential conceptual background belief system of the subject. In this manner the generation of the belief mental state is a token of either the perceptual fact, its propositional equivalent representation of the belief or a required combination thereof. It is beyond the scope of this brief account to discuss (speculate) how perceptual qualia facts are represented or whether qualia are intrinsically representational (see Chalmers, Block). Suffice it to say, at this point, that qualia would be ‘invisible’ unless they carry a semantic content to the subject experiencing it. At the perceptual level sense-phenomenal facts are semantic neutral, and acquire their ‘meanings’ at conscious levels when they incorporate their substantive content within the context of other circumstantial experiences, ongoing or stored in memory off-line. Thus we adopt by reference the posture that qualia (sense-phenomenal or conceptual) may be reduced and structured in a propositional format compatible with other sense-phenomenal representations in the mind / brain. Likewise, non-propositional feelings or qualia (e.g., anger, sadness, etc.) acquire their meanings within the context of the existential circumstantial reality of the subject and in the process conceptual facts and / or beliefs are modified and generated.

     Assuming that the preservation of the biological integrity of the human species has the highest survival priority, the inherited DNA-coded meanings (proto-semantics) guide and direct the syntax structure of culturally-acquired meanings as expressed linguistically. How DNA sequences, folding, etc. get translated into a neuronal network machine language controlled by the human species biological survival (homeostatic equilibrium) rules is still a mystery. A novel environmental sense-phenomenal online, or a body-proper input will find the subject in a particular internal state in accordance with the instant task at hand. We have described elsewhere how novel inputs are processed first in the amygdaloidal / hippocampus complex and then an adaptive response with the best probability of success is fashioned according to the biological proto-semantic machine language rules and other psycho-social imperatives. Past the amygdaloidal and hippocampus context screening, the inputs are initially neutral and they need to be parsed with relevant acquired memory data to find the appropriate meaning withing the context of the adaptive response. The common denominator driving the recursive recycling of parsing and / or commingling of new and old data is the representation format that will generate an inner language, at least when dealing with issues reduced or otherwise instantiated to propositional formats in their brain / mind representation. Such representations must be recursively processed, accessed and deployed for use in relevant theoretical inferences we associate with the elaboration of means-beliefs guiding ends-responses.. (see Fodor) 

     Meanwhile the perceptual sensory apparatus continues actively monitoring the changes in the environmental scenery as directed by the executive cortex acting as a central command or CPU in a computer parsing and sorting among the available alternatives to adaptively respond, based on the internal body state of physiological homeostasis (visceral brain, compartment 1) vis a vis its adequacy to meet the environmental contingency encountered. This requires a dynamic / continued self adjustment, self configuration sustained by an exhaustive parsing, sorting out and continuous recursive recycling between states of effectors and sensory receptors. This way internal and external mental states are kept continuosly updated (dynamic self configuration based on input) by the active participation of exteroceptors, interoceptors and propioceptors which inform the effector network of relevant variations in state. These variations may generate new alternative scenarios to be chosen from if needed. The real problem comes when the cortical ‘attractor’ quantum dynamics model just described has to be integrated along with a propositional model into a common representational system manifold generating the belief that is causally efficient in guiding an adaptive response. For the present purposes, we will avoid the issue of integration now and deal with the equally complex problem of defining the structure of the belief representation.

     Arguably, language is the best tool to forge the representational structure of facts, beliefs and thoughts. As Fodor has previously suggested, it is difficult to escape the similarity of language and thoughts in their productivity and systematicity. These features also account for the richness and variety of possible beliefs when their language representatives are combined, permuted or otherwise recursively cycled during parsing.

     Thus “S believes that P & B” where the proposition P hopefully becomes true and is based on the high probability of belief B  being true under modal logic such that ‘If B then P’. How do we arrive at our beliefs? Simply stated, we experience sense-phenomenal perceptions of objects or events in the environment (external or body proper), e.g., we observe the white ball traveling towards home plate at a certain speed and spin. Immediately we form the belief (B, of probability =1) that there is a tall pitcher hurling a spinning white sphere (object properties) to the batter during the baseball series (event). The linguistically structured syntax proposition P that preceded was based on the representation ‘If B then P’ where the sense-phenomenal visual perception was causally efficient in accessing the language consumer system to recursively generate the proposition’s syntax structure describing the object and event. Here belief and knowledge blend , B = P. Notwithstanding the possible color blindness of the observer (e.g., baseball was red), we have arrived at the best possible concordance between fact and belief for S as explained above. Notice how the ontological fact of the redness of this ball is operationally  substituted by the epistemological fact / belief of the whiteness of all standard baseballs ever produced. The analysis gets more complex when the belief formed is based on false premises unknown to the observer S. The amputee of our previous example temporarily lacks the neuronal basis on which to form the belief (B) that he no longer has a left leg and honestly expresses linguistically the proposition P: “My left leg hurts.”, even when the sense-phenomenal probability of a fleshy, bony left leg is = 0, a false premise! This last situation brings into focus the problem of reliability of our beliefs and how the brain netwoks operate in the formation of beliefs based on mis-information provided by body-proper internal data (or sense-phenomenal data as in the subject with color blindness). As noted earlier, beliefs as such, are, in theory, formed neutral and acquire their semantic content based on the bio-psycho-social (BPS) circumstance of subject S. Fortunately, the shared genetic and acquired memory data bases content for the human species in a given ecological niche enables us to predict the behavior of other humans (theory of mind) and even the composition of their tissue biopsies. Having examined the possible brain processing of on-line sense-phenomenal perceptual data and / or off-line conceptual memory data in the formation of beliefs or knowledge, we ask, how is the belief or knowledge about the Arctic circle, geographical coordinates, or the invisible structure / function of the postulated sub-atomic ‘wavicles’ at the sub-Planck n-dimensional domain any different from the equivalent belief or knowledge about life, consciousness or a conceptual ‘intelligent designer’ of such negentropic existential cosmological complexity? As long as humans naturally yearn for an explanation about life, cosmos or their own origins and destiny there will always be two beliefs, one, an un-identified non-physical-pantheistic invisible force driving the random evolutionary self design of matter guided by the natural laws in exclusive control of their properties and their interactive relationship, or two, a theistic intelligent designer bringing a mental ordering to a chaotic world of sensations..

     When is a reliable mental state P = B operational? If the representational structure be linguistic in nature we have argued for an inherited proto-semantic default guiding the relevant syntax structure of P in the adopted language, i.e., proto-semantics precedes syntax structure where DNA-coded Q is causally efficient in the production of P following the language rules of the acquired language. The same neuronal networks processing the phonologically-derived acquisition of knowledge, as discussed elsewhere, should be able to produce the inner language when working in a reverse direction using similar neuronal network nodes and adjustable synaptic weights. Connectionist brain networks CAN be compatible with a propositional architecture of beliefs.. We reject the ‘dispositional’, ‘functionalist’ and ‘interpretationist’ approach to beliefs as being another attempt at introducing a physicalist version of behaviorism without further ado notwithstanding the observable fact that one belief may produce a multitude of behaviors depending on S’s relevant BPS conditions antecedent. Furthermore, attributing beliefs and desires to a computer programmed with coded conditions antecedent assigns them an unwarranted intentionality never demonstrated in the lab for a computer. However, in our ‘hybrid’ model of reality the quantum cortical ‘attractor’ becomes an quasi-deterministic neuronal-coded reservoir of dispositional, implicit beliefs and attitudes, a brain robot ready to provide the best adaptive probable response to a significant environmental change. These are based on on-line ongoing sense-phenomenal events or as off-line subconsciously retrieved data from memory data bases (genetic / acquired) with a probability potential of being explicitely realized under certain conditions where the human subject S’s free will controls the final adaptive choice volitionally. To the extent that the implied or tacit beliefs are integrated from various sources of measurable empirical external and internal body proper data, they are synonymous with knowledge as we know it; however they remain subconscious until accessed for conscious deployment as explicit knowledge / beliefs. There is a caveat however, all of these conclusions are based on the presumption that the subject S is a BPS just, reasonable and healthy individual to avoid the distinction Quine makes between the ‘de dicto’ and ‘de re’ belief attributions where, e.g., the ‘de dicto’ amputee’s belief / knowledge about pain in his phantom limb is not a measurable fact ‘de re’. We believe that ‘de re’ and ‘de dicto’ beliefs can be distinguished from each other by the level of consciousness they mostly operate. It is not far-fetched to consider the latter as subconscious reflex beliefs not to be considered consciously as a reliable basis on which to plan a strategy for an adaptive, explicit response, perhaps a case of a belief without subject's S self acceptance. Subconscious reflex beliefs / knowledge may be considered a subset of the procedural knowledge class (e.g., how to ride a bicycle) to be distinguished from the conscious semantic or declarative knowledge seen when, e.g., analyzing a proposition. Implied subconscious knowledge may be inherited and unconscious or acquired and subconscious in content, mostly combinations thereof and, like procedural knowledge, becomes behaviorally explicit and conscious when chosen or otherwise activated to guide an adaptive response. It is more difficult to accept a transition from an unconscious, inherited, implicit or procedural, neuronal reflex knowledge, e.g., S walks à S has a conscious explicit belief that he can walk, than to accept the more credible transition to consciousness from a subconscious cumulative, acquired, implicit, semantic / declarative knowledge, e.g., “The U.S. can negotiate with the Taliban.” à to a conscious explicit belief that indeed the U.S. can negotiate with them. Both, circumstantially constitute justified true beliefs.

     It must be said that the ‘functionalist’ model, according to which what makes a brain representation a belief mental state are facts about the internal structure of the object / event they represent (known or not!), is necessary BUT insufficient for an absolute description of noumenic reality. To believe that an entity built in a lab (or in another world) with a functional composition and chemistry identical to humans will necessarily have life and self-consciousness is an article of faith of the physicalist pantheistic persuasion.  

     But, how may an inherited neuronal processing like, e.g., unconscious neuro-muscular walking, coded in genetic DNA language and transduced into moto-neuronal networks assemblies have a propositional structure? If not, how may its representation become compatible or interactive with the propositional structure of a semantic / declarative belief content, e.g., DNA base-pairing language (proto-semantics) à linguistic logical syntax? Can the implicit probabilities of world realization embodied in quantum dynamics brain attractors content be considered as propositions for sets of possible worlds where varying relevant premises are permuted, combined and parsed? Can both the ontologically-derived (sense-phenomenal and body proper-derived environments) perceptual data be indelibly coupled with the epistemologically-derived conceptual propositions clothed in linguistic garb? Can set theory be married to modal logic? For one thing one may have to balance out the probabilistic nature of the multivariate, implicit, quasi-determinism of the many worlds coarse granularity of the cortical ‘attractor’ model, incorporating the instantaneous transitions -as they occur in the external and internal environments-, with the much more discreet and finer granularity of the linguistic structure. As long as cortical ‘attractors’ can be viewed as functional propositions about the content of our knowledge and / or beliefs about self in relation to the external and internal (body proper) reality there is a hope of developing a general theory of knowledge / beliefs or any other propositional attitude for that matter. In such model every possible adaptive solution is assigned a probability of future success based not only on ongoing instant environmental changes (internal and external) but also on the invariant genetic and the variable acquired related knowledge / beliefs. This holistic view has the advantage of individualizing S’s adaptive responses to the same stimulus, cause man is him AND his existential bio-psycho-social (BPS) circumstance, as Ortega y Gasset would have said. There may exist inside the cortical ‘attractor’ basins as many neuronal networks possibilities to choose from as there may be circumstantial modifiers to influence the choice. There is as much productivity in the many worlds scenario of the cortical ‘attractor’ as in the linguistic recursive generation of syntax structure. We reject the Fodorian notion that knowledge or beliefs or their brain symbolic representations thereof always exist independently of each other. Culturally acquired experiences act as modifiers of semantics as languages evolve without significantly affecting productivity and systematicity of language except as circumstances so demand in the course of time. The interactive relationship between the DNA-coded genetic memory and the protective neuro-humoral role in defense of the biological integrity of the human body and in achieving homeostatic BPS equilibrium is well documented. Animals, unlike humans, cannot conceptualize the meaning of such unconscious reflex activity; the proto-semantic content represented in their neuronal networks is never formulated as a survival imperative in barks or, brays or yelps. Only humans can rationalize and conceptualize its inherited and protective attributes learned from experiments and express it in the syntax structure of an adopted natural language as a knowledge or belief, e.g., S believes / knows that excessive microwave radiation from his cell phone can burn his ear lobes. This integration of inherited and acquired information, existing as cortical ‘attractors’ containing probable scenarios in future encounters with the realities of our existence makes us believe that language syntax structure, while systematically produced via an inherited proto-semantic neuronal processing needs no longer to be exclusively ascribed to internal properties of the brain or externally acquired influences.       

     Thus we may conclude that inherited or acquired adaptive responses for existential contingencies can only become knowledge or beliefs at conscious levels through the aegis of an inner adopted natural language structured in symbolic and / or sentential syntax. The main arguments in the defense of language for the production of knowledge or belief come from Davidson who argues that all believers know that their beliefs can be false, especially when considering the existence of mind-independent reality beyond humans’ limited power of sensory and brain combinatorial resolution. These preceding conclusions can only be ascertained via logical mechanisms requiring the mediation of a language. The simplest propositional structure of any belief is contingent upon antecedent knowledge or belief about other knowledge or belief with specific content where subjects, predicates, their attributes and interactions, etc., need be apprehended conceptually. Likewise, children need develop their language lexical content and parsing potential before being able to conceptually formulate beliefs or any other attitude propositionally structured..

BIBLIOGRAPHY.  

End of Ch. 6                                                         

p 92

Ch. 7

BRIEF NOTES ON THE POSSIBLE STRUCTURE OF A BELIEF PROPOSITION. Part I

INTRODUCTION.

     Being now the reader more familiar with the meaning of ‘a subject S beliefs’ from a previous chapter, let us examine how two or more speakers can express the very same thing / content when using different declarative sentences, even if they are speaking in different natural languages. That information content they have non-linguistically expressed is what we call the propositional content of their utterances, which may be true / false always or sometimes. We will have more to say later about how the meaning of the proposition itself may be extracted from the biopsychosocial (BPS) contextual background attending the expression. Thus, whether a lover tells her counterpart ‘Ich liebe dich.’, ‘Te amo.’ or ‘I love you.’, the same propositional content is being globally expressed. It is important here that we make a clear distinction between the extracted non-linguistic personal affective knowledge, feeling or belief being expressed to the other partner (the belief proposition) from the source, i.e., the chosen natural language syntax to phrase the declarative sentence expressed. It is that belief information content (whether sometimes or always true or not) that the lover in the example is actually expressing (whether as a necessity or a possibility, contingent or not on other relevant BPS circumstances). We call these variations the modal properties of a proposition.

     We should begin to appreciate that, whereas the syntax structure of a linguistic expression in many / the same individual, speaking the same / different acquired languages may vary considerably, it is the invisible propositional content captured inside its semantic structure that carries the burden of characterizing the meaning of what is intended to be informed. There is an acquired linguistic syntax style and there is an inherited, primitive, proto-semantic bio-psycho-social ‘belief’ content that precedes the language syntax structure, contra Chomskian dogma on an universal grammar where syntax precedes semantics. The propositional content is that  complex invisible structure behind the visible syntax arrangement. What then is the possible structure of a belief proposition, if any? We may have to use a special optics to see if it is possible to either identify its constitutive elements (when present)  and / or find out how they are put together. Once we adopt the most reliable structure we will explore how best it may be adapted to express the quantum dynamic probable, adaptive solutions to environmental contingencies that are available (represented) in brain networks for humans to choose from.

     It is important that the reader keeps in mind our restricted use of a ‘many world’ expression where the different worlds scenarios exist only in the mind of a given sentient human being as probable outcomes adapted to his vital BPS circumstance. Albert and Loewer 1988 postulate that “..every sentient being has a continuum of minds”. Should there be significant changes in the evolving biopsychosocial dynamic equilibrium affecting one or more coexisting mental states in a subject there will be a corresponding functional brain readjustment (in superpositional adaptive harmony with environmental / universal quantum states?) with probabilities of enactment equal to the quantum probabilities for these individual coexisting states.

ARGUMENTATION.

     Explaining the atomic 'word' particles of an invisible structure is difficult enough but always easier than putting them together as a meaningful propositional, molecular sentential whole. For one thing each atomic particle will carry the meaning of the word used in the sentence expressed, e.g., it identifies the protagonist-subjects, objects / events and some relationship R (e.g., attitude) that binds them together. In the example before, the visible structure of the sentence “I love you.” becomes subject S believes (b) that he loves (L) his girl friend (g) or expressed as a propositional (P) functional structure: S (b) that P or [S[L[g]]] as the universal structure derived from the original sentence structure involving only two protagonists (S&g) and a going relationship (L). As complex as it may seem at first sight it merely substitutes atomic particles (S,L,g) for the meanings of the words (subject, loves, girl friend) they represent. Or conversely, the meaningless propositional function -expressed in the symbolic or sentential representation- is animated by their substitution by real protagonists, objects or events and their relationship, i.e., when the propositional function becomes the meaningful proposition itself. Of course the efficacy of the transformation is predicated on the atomic 'word' particle having captured the full ‘contextual’ semantic value of the word or phrase in the original sentence. Worse off, it may be the case where the propositional structure carry atomic particles not represented by any word, phrase or syntax arrangement of the sentence. Conversely some words in the sentence may be semantically neutral. Contextually, the sentence “I love you.” may even be an expression of gratitude for a favor received from a stranger, not the strong affective feeling we associate with the relation between two lovers. It should be noticed the very special role played by the relationship R in coupling as a unit the atomic word particles or phrases.

     Because of the special correlation between the visible sentence and the invisible proposition derived therefrom, the semantic values of the latter should always be recovered from the former, unlike the situation that obtains when the semantic value of the expressions in the propositions stand as sets of possible worlds where the 1:1 correlation between the sentence and the proposition may be blurred. However, this is a feature we should cope with to develop further the propositional structure entity in dealing with the brain’s many world ‘attractor’ feature and its quantum dynamics and neuronal network organization. If we can accomplish that feat we will have created an operational epistemontological hybrid closer to existential reality than either the myopic science methodology or the poetry of conventional philosophy. How so? For starters, we should be aiming at a propositional structure whose atomic word constituents are rigid designators, whether the descriptions of scientific observations / measurements, indexicals, predicates, the linguistic referentials or others. We will explain.

     If we exclude other modal aspects for the moment, propositions should assert in words or symbols what is true, false, probable or at least possible. When we say S loves his wife =[S[L[w]]] or x² + y² = z² we are describing a propositional function with undetermined atomic word constituents, different from <Angell loves Suzi.> or <For all values of x and y, x² + y² = z²> which are true propositions in all possible worlds. In the first case we rest on a historical referential and in the second case on the definite description of a scientific measurement, both examples of rigid designators true in all possible worlds. In the first case we have substituted the symbols with designated verifiable individuals thus –by using a relevant extension- we effect a transition from the indeterminacy of possible worlds to the specificity of ‘intensions’ and in the second case the bare math formula would have said nothing unless we add that it <will be true for all values of x & y>. This way these word / symbol expressions evolve from being extensions at possible worlds (or probabilities) to relevant intensions, e.g., mapping all such probabilities or possible worlds to an individual. Fodor’s ‘propositional attitude’ model [e.g., S (a) that P = <Angell believes that he loves Suzi>] comes closer to what an ideal propositional structure should be like where the subject (Angell), the attitude predicate (believes) and the ‘that’ clause (he loves Suzi) bears more semantic weight and is more fine-grained than the classic many world model. When the attitude verb and the ‘that’ clause is followed by a sentence it defines its intensionality, the set of worlds in which it is true without losing possible different meanings.

     In theory any proposition has two different kinds of particles, one refers to the sense-phenomenal objects / events ‘things’ in the empirical domain and the other to conceptually-derived explanation of their meanings. The special senses monitor the significant features of the external world while the visceral brain monitors the significant deviations from the genetically programmed homeostatic neuro-hormonal settings. The unconscious, servo-controlled brain builds up and maintains a constantly changing model of self within the context of these internal and external variations. The sub-conscious brain infers and maintains the probable outcome of each possible scenario as embodied in the relevant propositional structure(s) and, when facing a significant contingency, has the option to access the repertoire of conceptual representations embodying such features. In modeling itself, the conscious brain computational networks  choose (based on their adaptive value) to either act to change the relevant features of the contingent environment or modify the current relationship between self and such environment. The propositional structure should hybridize the ontologically descriptive ‘contingent thing’ and its epistemological, conceptually-derived meaning. How do we bind them together as a hybrid unit? What are the primitive relations (R) between the observed (empirical e) and the inferred (conceptual c)?

     From an informational content (representation) point of view the empirical (o) should imply the conceptual (c), e = c, e > c, e < c. Ideally the empirical should bear a logical supervenient relation to the conceptual. But, as Chalmers has aptly suggested, in existential reality we can at best only hope to get a propositional structure of natural supervenience; but we now believe that based on a possible quantification of a modal logic (of belief?) as it relates to quantum probabilities, we can improve on it. But it will be difficult. It would be incoherent to quantify a domain of things probable and it is easier to assume that all possible objects / events in a given world exist in a single, fixed quantifiable domain. This way all or none , always or sometimes, indexicals and protagonists, necessary or possible, etc. can all become incorporated into the new propositional architecture. E.g., ∀ (all) and ∃ (some),   x□A→□∀xA, etc. Notice the square symbol indicating the “necessary” condition (as opposed to “possible” or ◊). Different objects exist in different possible worlds and the domain of quantification contains ALL possible objects, i.e., ∀y□∃x(x=y) means that every object in existence is necessarily to be found in the domain of all possible objects. To satisfy Quine’s concern about the context-dependant ontological reality when using the quantifier “some”, only objects / events with a clear empirical probability, containing only the spatio-temporal particulars found in a given macro quantum world (in a world-relative domain) should be included in the expression. This is denoted in a modal logic (M) by the predicate expression “E” (for actually exists), e.g., ∃x(Ex&Mx&Sx), would stand for the fact that, e.g., there exists (∃x) a living French president (Ex) of Hungarian ancestry who signed (Sx) a treaty of cooperation with the US in the Middle East. Will this approach work when dealing at the micro quantum level?

     This world-related (w) structure may bring un-expected problems for the system's semantics when satisfying / verifying (v) the condition of ‘nested domains’ (wRv) when the domain of  a possible world (w) is a subset related (R) to the domain of v where our object / event verifiably (v) and in actuality exists. The problem was solved above by introducing a predicate statement of actual existence (Ex) into the equation; this existence can be instantiated. Thus, for ALL values of x, any properly phrased statement of predicate logic (Ax) results from substituting y and n for any occurrence of x in Ax : (∀xA(x) & En). Once we have taken care of the *proper use of rigid designators, as explained above, the semantics of a quantified modal logic becomes more compatible to equate with the quantum dynamic probabilities system characterizing brain attractors and we hope to model such measurable phenomena to construct a formal theory that describes and explains it. The ‘model’ of the phenomena or system so described / explained is not a structure but a theory, hopefully to be expressed in a formal language.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.

     Assuming we are able to arrive at a suitable propositional structure, one in which its arguments are properly expressed, how do we ascertain their validity? We have to develop a sound system where its sets of rules and axioms logically prove / validate all the arguments therein expressed. Whereas in the classical propositional logic we use ‘truth tables’ to demonstrate that valid conclusions stem from the exclusive validity of premises in A, in modal logic we cannot develop truth tables matrices for the modalities of A, e.g., it is ‘possible’ (◊A) or ‘necessary’ (□A) that A, etc. A valid complex (molecular) expression in propositional logic depends on the validity (truth value / falsehood)) of the propositional variables of each constitutive (atomic) sentences. A simpler sentence example will illustrate; the validity of the expression “All presidents are humans.” is not a guarantee that “All presidents make rational decisions.” In the former sentence (□A) is always true of necessity, in the latter (□A) is false (not absolutely or necessarily true). To be able to handle the complexities of modal semantics it is necessary to introduce the concept of ‘many worlds’ scenarios or ‘many valued logic’. This way, of all possible world scenarios W (e.g., at the macro level of organization), there exists a possible world (w) where presidents -in that given set- make valid rational decisions. Our lofty goal is, at the mind / brain level, to be able to assign probability values to that particular / vital w scenario based on measured quantum values at the Planck level of organization.

     To accommodate existential reality (sometimes called ‘free logic’) Lukasiewicz and others had to ‘mongrelize’ the classic approach by introducing symbols like ‘not’ (~), ‘ if…then..’ (-->), possible (◊A) and ‘necessary’ (□), among others. We may be able to expand the classical ‘truth table’ to include these notations and valuate (v) the truth value of complex sentences, e.g.,  “ v(□A, w)=T   iff   for every world w′ in W, v(A, w′)=T ”. Thus, it is necessary that the argument A is true (□A) at a world (w) if and only (iff) the argument is true in ALL possible worlds (w1, w2..) in (W). The possibility of argument A (◊A) is true (T) just in case A is true in some possible world (w1…). Again, we hope to convert possibilities into measured probabilities for a quantum dynamic system with the aid of these quantifiers.

     Arguments in a complex proposition about brain function may take other values beyond mere truth and falsity because their truth values depend on the values of their constitutive components whose individual validities are modal. Enter ‘many-valued logic’. In our opinion, we should be able to develop a ‘truth table’ matrix that includes values between truth (1) and falsity (0) according to the probability of their conclusion being instantiated in falsifiable reality. Thus,

1)    v(A) + v(A1,A2..An) + v(~A) = 1. Furthermore,

2)    v(A à B) = [1, 1- v(A1,A2..An) + v(~A) +  v(B)]

     Notice that intermediate values between truth and falsity are open ended and thus impossible to frame inside a conventional value matrix.

     In our particular case where we assume the brain is constantly self-modeling and incorporating the relevant features of its internal (body proper) and external (empirical) environment we need to incorporate temporal notation to reflect conditions at time t and t+1. Now for a validation (v) of A it will be ‘necessary’ that argument A (□A) is true (T) at a given time w iff it is always also true in the future of w at w’. Notice the requirement that present w and future w’ are related (R) transitively (wRw’). Simply said, the argument A is true in the present w just in case it is also always true at all times after w.  Notice the required relation R of transitivity between the present time w and the future w’ or wRw’. 

3)    v(□A, w)=T   iff   for every w′, if wRw′, then v(A, w′)=T.

     Similar relations may be developed for ‘seriality’ and ‘density’. The validity of the temporal approach is predicated on the binary relation R on W (if a non-empty set of worlds W) indicated above as expressed in the ‘frame’ <W,R>. Such model requires a valuation assigning truth values to all constitutive component sentences at each world in W.

     In this brief essay we have left out quantum theoretical considerations and how they relate to ontological / epistemological issues related to mind ‘beliefs’ which we defer to a future publication. At that time we will elaborate on the premise that quantum dynamics of brain function can rest on a special structure of a propositional logic because its dynamics can be considered as a special probability calculus which we labor to dissect out and then integrate. We still don’t know how to go about characterizing the values of v(A) from a range of values B (each with distinct probabilities) without relying on a projection operator on a Hilbert space (H) lattice.

    Furthermore, when truth (1) and falsity (0) according to their probability of being instantiated in reality.

Newport, North Carolina,  Xmas 2007

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Carnap, Rudolf, 1947, Meaning and Necessity, University of Chicago Press

2. King, Jeffrey C., 1996, ‘Structured Propositions and Sentence Structure’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 25: 495-521

3. Kripke, Saul, 1972, 1980, Naming and Necessity, Harvard University Press and Basil Blackwell

4. Russell, Bertrand, 1924, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, Mac Millan New York

5. Tarsky, Alfred, 1995, Introduction to Logic. Dover Publications, Inc., New York

End of Ch. 7                                              

p 100

Ch. 8

IS THE BRAIN A PROBABILISTIC MACHINE?

ABSTRACT

     Many would accept the premise that the human mind is a continuously updating dynamic engine as a self-evident truth. This makes it easier to accept that the conclusions emanating exclusively from propositional logic processing cannot, under deductive monotonic logic principles, be overturned by any new relevant, contingent information that might present itself either perceptually or conceptually. This is so because it would be counterintuitive and contrary to experience. We believe that, consistent with the dynamic brain processing of sense-phenomenal and memory-based conceptual data, we have to reject the exclusivity of the canonical ‘modus ponens’ of propositional logic and adopt a probabilistic model that would seem more realistically adequate to explain how human reasoning analyzes contingencies and makes adaptive decisions.

INTRODUCTION.    

     In part I of the preceding chapter we left out any detailed consideration about how our conclusions on a modified logic may be readied for a hybridization with a modified quantum theory, we said: “In this brief essay we have left out quantum theoretical considerations and how they relate to ontological / epistemological issues related to mind ‘beliefs’ which we defer to a future publication. At that time we will elaborate on the premise that quantum dynamics of brain function can rest on a special structure of a propositional logic because its dynamics can be considered as a special probability calculus which we labor to dissect out and then integrate. We still don’t know how to go about characterizing the values of v(A) from a range of values B (each with distinct probabilities) without relying on a projection operator on a Hilbert space (H) lattice.” We will attempt to do this now as we continue to introduce modifications on both modal / Bayesian logic and quantum theory.

     The common denominator guiding our effort to hybridize classical logic and quantum theories into an analytical tool to study brain dynamics is probability theory whose inevitable relevance we envision in both ontological and epistemological considerations of existential reality. While much effort is spent by intellectuals in speculations about an ephemeral noumenal reality invisible to our senses and elusive to our intellect to apprehend by deductive inference, a noble endeavor indeed, we need at least to elaborate a reliable, operational modal inductive logic to provide satisfactory answers to pressing medical and societal conundrums of the highest complexity. Hopefully we should be able to develop the theoretical foundations for a reliable probabilistic inference beyond mere Bayesian conditionalization rules. The time has come for intellectuals to abandon the illusion of a structured, static and reducible physical reality, accept our human species inexorable sense-phenomenal and brain computational limitations and start thinking about how to best reason about uncertainty; this way life and consciousness may be closer to our possible understanding. It may turn out that the human brain, different from the silicon brain, functions according to, not propositional but probabilistic rules of inference. Human rationality is probabilistic, not propositional! We often seem to forget that our inherited reptilian brain component is hard wired and seemingly unable to yield much of its biological survival imperative settings to the relatively fleeting demands from acquired proposition-structured requirements to adjust. The cognitive sciences may as well accept that a probabilistic logic would be better equipped to understand the complexities of existential reality….just an intuition, not a ‘deduction’!

ARGUMENTATION.

     It is well known that the human brain combinatorial capacity in tests of numerical reasoning is very limited. But it is also well known that the probabilistic approach of quantum theory has yielded a wealth of valuable novel predictions about future scenarios, albeit casted as probabilities. Can human rationality, at least as structured in the operation of the brain’s executive cortex, be probabilistic in nature? If so it behooves our research effort to change our cognitive approach. What follows is another fishing expedition on the possibilities present by changing gears from propositional to probabilistic inference logic. How do we go about it?

     The first apparent limitation in structuring probabilistic reasoning rules is accepting that such a daring approach requires a radical change in the processing of information and realizing also that the conclusions to be derived from their novel handling is, at best, semi-quantitative when casted as probabilities. The reader must also be aware that the probability logic we are marketing is NOT the garden variety mathematical probability based on the objective probability that a sense-phenomenal object / event becomes an observable data ‘fact’ but rather, as enunciated in the title, based on the subjective probabilities or ‘degrees of belief’ that the execution of an adaptive solution (to a given contingency) can be realized while simultaneously being subject to constant variations and updating in its locus at the cortical attractor basin. Self-evident sense-phenomenal (both body proper and external) and historical experience can attest to the fact that change is the most fundamental of all independent variables, the reason we had to conceptualize the notion of time to measure change; we will expand on this in a future chapter.Propositional logic is ill fitted to analyze inferential relations whose dynamic character makes truth preserving and absolute certainty to hold only for a fleeting instant moment or for the illusion of a static reality, a reality which itself has a dependence on contingent facts of questionable certainty. This way, as we discussed previously, propositional logic arguments put a constraint on human beliefs about his existential reality and thus becomes incoherent ‘de facto’. See Davidson, 1984. How can a probabilistic modal logic become coherent? Enter conditional probability logic.

     This is what we find when we examine this alternative. Of all possible future world scenarios w available in an updated cortical attractor basin to choose from, the one selected –represented as statement S (or a hypothesis H)--  has an initial primitive probability represented as Pi(S) when confronted with a new empirical contingency evidence E (of probability > 0). The probability of S being chosen, i.e., the degree of belief / confidence in S, will be conditioned on E’s truth value as an indicator of its own probability P(E) and expressed as the new or final probability Pf of S based on E’s probability.  Pf(S | E) = Pi(S&E)/P(E). We have argued that the probability of perceptual falsifiable evidence = 1 and an evaluation of the probability of E should be limited to conceptually derived ‘evidence’, e.g., mathematical reduction. In our opinion this consideration undermines to some extent the reliability value of conditional probability as the equivalent of a probabilistic inference or even as inductive reasoning.

     In Bayesian terms this would be the equivalent of Pf(S | E) = Pi(E | S) × Pi(S)/P(E) and P(E) is assumed to be greater than zero and as such the new evidence (algebraically) increases the confidence on the initial hypothesis after the condition was imposed by the evidence. What if the probability of the new evidence is closer to zero?

     The inconsistency on the use of the conditional notation (|) in the literature when a division (/) is meant has created considerable confusion for the uninitiated when analyzing the proposed inequality equations, as the following sentences will show. Let the hypothesis H (or statement S) that all those voting in the Louisiana presidential primaries for Obama are black. Let the observation (evidence) E₁ stand for a white, non-voter and E₂ for a black voter. According to modal / `Bayesian Confirmation Theory' both E<sub>1</sub> and E<sub>2</sub> may, in principle, provide `some' confirmation for hypothesis H (or statement S) because E₁ ’supports’ H (or S) just in case P_i(E₁| H)/P_i(E₁) > 1 and E₂ provides much better confirmation for H, because, according to theory P_i(E₂ | H)/P_i(E₂)>> P_i(E₁| H)/P_i(E₁). In layman terms, the initial cortical attractor probability (PiS) that black voters in Louisiana voted for Obama is increased to a new final probability (PfS) based on new contingency E2 (black voter statement) than on E1 (white non-voter).

     In our opinion probabilities range from 0 -->1 and for contingency E₁, to state that P_i (E₁| H)/P_i(E₁) > 1 is a misleading expression when the conditional notation (|) continues to be used in the literature as a division sign (/). Especially when it seems to be stating that, after transposing the denominator to the right hand side of the inequality it would imply that probability of new event E₁ (white non-voter, probably known to be zero) can only decrease the probability of the hypothesis. But, transposing terms this is equivalent to P_i(E₁| H) > P_i(E₁) which means that the probability of H being true increases with the observation E₁ than without it! Likewise, for E₂, P_i(E₂ | H)/P_i(E₂) >> P_i(E₁| H)/P_i(E₁) both sides of the inequality look identical because of the confusing notation for conditionality being incorrectly taken as meaning a division.

     Like in classical logic, anytime a hypothesis logically supervenes on a piece of evidence, the evidence confirms the hypothesis or statement. But, is human reasoning, at its best, exclusively dependent on propositional logic calculations over symbolic representations using proof rules like in silicon brains? We'd rather think that, unlike our unconscious processings where inherited biological survival imperatives for the species default the possible outcomes of an analysis, subconscious analysis is a going over / review cortical neuronal network ‘possible world’ / future scenarios representations (as coded logical statements S or hypothesis H) in cortical attractor basins (streaming consciousness) where the ones with optimal bio-psycho-social equilibria are considered for the final free will choice or consent to the brain robotic-like selection. Whereas the computer assessment means accessing different rules of processing, the human mind considers more options as syllogistically represented in the future scenarios model where biological, psychic and sociological priorities are factored in. What is ultimately more important, to learn how we humans actually reason out existential contingencies or how we ought to logically reason them out (like docking a space module in space or removing one electron at a time from an external atomic orbital)? We seem to know more about the abstraction than the actual behavior (based on a probabilistic decision-making process). We are not advocating a retreat back to pre-Chomskian Skinnerian behaviorism but to remind our best minds that ultimately man is the measure of all things, perceptually sensed or conceptually inferred, computable or not, whether beings in measurable essence or in invisible conceptual / virtual existence. Complex mathematical analysis is not a game for the physical religionist to display his obvious talents, instead we view it as a necessary tool to better understand and predict integral human behavior in its ever-changing biopsychosocial perspectives. Reality has to be reasoned out existentially from a human logical, not an exclusive computer perspective. The careful reader may have noticed that, in this approach, we are anchoring our probabilistic inductive conclusions in perhaps not so solid logical deductive abstractions, c’est la guerre for the limited human existence in a constant search for that elusive noumenal perfection. Man is the handy man at the very center of universal creation and complex, sophisticated abstractions are his tools…, just that!

     One may validly question how could it be possible to make valid inferences from false conditional statements, from untrue premises and consider them a useful basis for thoughtful analysis and adaptive action? In the example given above the standard conditional inference was built thus: by polling the first 100 voters in Louisiana’s presidential primaries as they exit the voting building it was recorded they were all black and voted for Obama. On this basis, the categorical premise that probably all voters for Obama were black was either supposed, believed or known to be true from other unrevealed sources; this conclusion or hypothesis is the equivalent of a cortical attractor solution when confronted with the new evince on the voter's polling. In this process of conditionalization the ‘modus ponens’ inference is that if the first 100 voters polled indeed were black (Pi) and voted for Obama, then possibly and probably all black voters in the polling building voted for Obama (categorical premise has an unknown probability). Once this evidence E from the first 100 voters who allegedly all voted for Obama is verified (probability=1) a higher probability or belief can be assigned to the cortical attractor final conclusion that all blacks probably voted for Obama. The degree of belief in this final conclusion ideally should be the same as in the verified results of the polling. According to the Bayesian identity P(p | q) = {P((q | p) P(p))/P(q)}  a conditional probability can be ascertained from its converse conditional probability and the initial conditions. Thus, e.g., if the probability that the first 100 voters polled were black and voted for Obama Pi(p), then the conditional (Bayesian) probability that all blacks voted for Obama P(q) is P(p | q) = {P(q | p)P(p)/P(q)}. If the initial probability Pi(p) is verified to be true, Pi(p)= Pf(p) = 1, then the final probability P(q), under Modus Ponens updates the probability (degrees of belief) that all blacks voted for Obama -the consequent P(q)- upon confirming that the antecedent Pi(p) (the first 100 blacks polled voted for Obama) is true. It should be noticed that the truth value of the consequent P(q) is contingent upon the ‘condition’ that verification of antecedent Pi(p) is reliable {Pf(p) = 1}. This confers a higher probability that P(q) may be true. This can be expressed: Pf(q) = Pi(q | p)Pf(p) + Pi(q/~p)Pf(~p); if our original belief was probably (e.g., Pi(q)=0.9) that all blacks voted for Obama, then considering that the verified polling showed that Pf(p)=1, our new (final) degree of belief  should be closer to 0.9 than it had been.

     Similarly, as we saw in the previous chapter, we can expand further this probabilistic approach to include syllogistic quantifiers like All or None, Some or Some not. E.g., some blacks P voted for Obama Q. All those that voted for Obama Q are unemployed R, consequently the inferenced conclusion that some blacks P are unemployed R is a probabilistically valid conclusion. Here P and Q are the subjects, Q and R the predicate terms of the syllogism.

     We should be now in a better position to examine in more detail how the future scenarios’ attractors in the executive cortex basin, parading / streaming before our subconscious mindscan reverie, be accessed / ‘measured’ as a processed sense-phenomenal event along with their attending qualia. Before getting too technical let us consider for a moment an example on how, e.g., when confronted with the problem of connecting an USB adaptor to an appropriate jack in our PC tower, we need to consider and process body position stability as provided by flexors and extensor muscles as we steadily lower our bodies to approach the hard floor, blindly find with our finger’s touch the proper spatial coordinates (in the back of the PC tower!) before pushing the adaptor into the correct position; we didn’t need to do anything more complex than consent to an unconscious selection of the most comfortable possible position from the many available involving a selection of the best available involuntary / voluntary muscle groups to complete the desire job. In other words, our conscious free will consent to one of several inherited motoneuron reflex alternatives available can be structured as an operator acting on all probable future combinations coded in neuronal networks at spinal and supraspinal levels to execute the most adaptive probable response. At higher mental levels of higher structural and functional complexities than the spinal or subcortical levels, the perceptual sensory  (or conceptual memory) input about the contingency to be solved has the effect of either incorporating / or modifying the probability for future events to occur. This may involve initially 1)the incorporation of perceptual sense-phenomenal data or conceptual (memory based or theoretical construct) data to modify that relevant information already in existence in cortical attractor basins and / or 2)the subsequent choice / consent after the modification, as needed. We have expressed elsewhere that the choice / consent may not necessarily reflect an optimal solution for the contingency presented but rather the one most in harmony with subject’s biopsychosocial equilibria. The choice  / collapse of the relevant mental state from the linear combination of all correlated states (many worlds) is co-generated with the conscious event. In a previous publication we had suggested the processing generating the choice as being the result of a recursive cyclic parsing which co-generates the conscious experience and relevant quale. Newborns may not be able to make subconscious choices or conscious consents and would only respond stereotypically to newly acquired data based on the inherited biological imperative default. This them will be elaborated further in subsequent chapters.

     It has been suggested (Manousakis, E. Foundations of Physics 2006) that operationally consciousness arises as the result of changes / alterations in what they call ‘state of potential consciousness’ |ψi>. (our cortical attractor basin), to |ψi+1>  i.e., it is consciousness that produces the quantum effect,  |ψi+1 > = ˆO |ψ>i where operator ˆO “represents the action of consciousness through an operational question which…causes a change.” We prefer to dissociate the postulated Universal / Global Stream of Consciousness from the individualized ‘substream of potential consciousness’ we experience. As we stated above the effect of perceptual or conceptual input into our brain can be passive (a modification of pre-existing future scenario for future recall) or active (when a change in mental state calls for an immediate adaptive free choice solution among alternatives). Future chosen world scenarios are already neuronally ‘bound’ upon receiving an input for change, for collapse of the chosen state which activates the neural correlates. Inferred change triggers (co-generates) the qualia of consciousness. It is possible to use the vector calculus notation to represent the pool of potential future outcomes as a linear combination of possible events and projection operators and their correspondence to known distributions. Thus, let the state vector in Hilbert space |ψ> represent the linear combination of the basis vectors |i> in the cortical attractor basin where i = 1,2,3…n The sum of all the vectors |i> describes all possible mental states each of which is associated with its corresponding neuronal network correlate, albeit with more flexible / modifiable synaptic weights than the stereotyped inherited reflex connections.. We prefer to think that the exercise of a free will choice should not be considered as a random unrestricted ‘measurement’ equivalent from a pool of possible outcomes obeying a statistical distribution function when iterated many times. Instead, we are all familiar with how a conscious effort in willing a desired result can be causally efficient on activating the relevant neural processing, as we did when choosing the most comfortable body position in the previous example. Nonetheless, it is convenient to consider the choice as the equivalent of a Newton projection operating on the mixture of probability amplitudes and comparing the differences between the prior state and the new one required. The probable neuronal chain of causation leading to the free will choice of the best adaptive solution from the possible future scenarios will be discussed in another article. We can fantasize or write high brow mathematical poetry about the assignment of a probability outcome for the chosen mental state based on the square of the coefficient in the linear combination. The Hilbert vector space finite measurement is a scalar product of the (length) of the overlapping vector states |ψ> and |φ>, M = <ψ|φ>, normalized to unity. Until such time as we are able to identify the proper representation of a mental state such that near infinite number of computer iterations would keep you away from complex multi-component vectors and bring you close to real number values, these are just high falluting speculations. But, we’ll get there… steady and unrelenting…..

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.

     It should be clear that both classical quantum theory and logic must be streamlined and forced to fit into the straight jacket of a psychophysical framework, the only model that would explain the intuition that conscious free will is causally efficient in driving neuronal network processes, like isolating the correct body position in the example. From neurophysiology we know that subconsciously the proper ensemble of neuronal network populations are ready to be activated if the result does not compromise body integrity and is otherwise compatible with other psycho-social, emotional well being considerations. It is self-evident truth that we need to build models that brings us both closer to noumenal reality and models that makes it easier to grasp the uncertainty present in all manifestations of existential reality. As it may turn out, our cognitive neuronal outlays are designed naturally to deal with a probabilistic world when we consider the infinite individual variations in tastes and approaches to solutions for the same problem of a viable biopsychosocial existence.

     As we discussed above, if we describe the vector states |ψ> and |φ> as representing possible world scenarios (cortical attractor basins) and a perceptual / conceptual input respectively, then the latter has the potential of modifying / updating the prior relevant content: |φ> = ˆO |ψ> where ˆO is the operator for that particular action of introducing either sense-phenomenal data or theoretical constructs based on memory data. The resulting overlap of the prior state and the new state: M = <ψ|φ> can be manifested as an updated solution to an old contingent problem for future use or a command for the execution of an adaptive action by activating the appropriate motor networks to effector glands or muscle. This would be the equivalent to an ‘observation’ in classical quantum theory. An ample overlap after a large number of ‘computer’ iterations can be represented as |ψ n+1> = ˆO |ψn>. After a repeated number of normalizations we approach the value: < ψ n|ˆO | ψ n > = 1. Eigen vectors represent the unchanged future world’s scenarios after the perceptual / conceptual input; eigen values is the result of the modification introduced. We actually update / actualize the neuronal network (Hebbian) weights as a practical result of our modifying the attractor content of the cortical basin. We realize we are not ready yet to pin point specific algorithms or equations to describe the thought process in a probabilistic world of varying sense-phenomenal content and their corresponding varying conceptual meanings but we think we are heading in the right direction by giving form to a psychophysical model dealing with an integral view of biopsychosocial existence.

     But we also know that a real human being may consciously interact directly with that invisible submicroscopic or world futures scenario and make or consent to adaptive choices which now we daringly wish to give form and ‘explain’ as a projection measurement / observation that may be pedagogically represented as the potential outcome of the Newton-Raphson operator on a linear space combination of possible solutions created by the result of the comparison between the pre- perceptual / conceptual modification (|Xn>) and the ‘new’ mental state that resulted (|Xn+1>). This way, having modified on a first stage, the configuration of neural connectivities of previously existing networks (as the result of perceptual / conceptual de novo inputs) the second stage would be the emotion-influenced recursive parsing, comparison with mental status (before 1^st. stage), reiteration and selection from a more restricted narrowed-down pool obeying well defined probable distributions. Mathematically, this distribution is given by the square of the coefficient in the linear array combination of possible solutions inside the Hilbert vector space when the scalar product between the two overlapping states (prior to input & as modified by it) occur as we briefly indicated in the previous paragraph above. This is concluded by the executive frontal lobe cortical activation of the appropriate neuron pools to motor effectors.

     Finally, the reader may have noticed how we have left out a discussion of the relevance of classical neurophysiological synaptic nerve transmission as opposed to the much faster quantum theoretical electromagnetic transmission of information to and fro sensorimotor neuron pools. This will require a discussion of the ‘time’ factor which we will leave for a future discussion below. Somehow it may seem surprising that nature confirms that time does not exist and only changes are able to be monitored, measured and recorded, there is no such thing as a time receptor organ ever described in the literature and as we described in an earlier publication in this series, sense-phenomenal input, after amplification, reaches the cortical attractor basin via single / multiple photon absorption, resonance coupling indirectly related to time, ie., frequencies. It so happens that besides those invisible quantum effects, we can also empirically demonstrate synchronous neuronal activation mediating sense-phenomenal input by changing the axonal conduction velocity from receptor to central brain processors. How the invisible and the macro handling of change to achieve synchronicity needs further study in other chapters below.

In Deltona Lakes, Florida. Winter 2007

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 1.     Bayes, Thomas, "An Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1764) 53: 37-418, reprinted in E. 1S. Pearson and M.G. Kendall, eds., Studies in the History of Statistics and probability (London: Charles Griffin, 1970).

2.       F. Selleri, and A. van der Merwe, Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality

3.       N. Bohr, Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (Cambridge University

4.       W. Heisenberg, The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (Dover, New

5.       D. Bohm, Phys. Rev. 85, 166 (1952). ibid, 85, 180 (1952).

6.       H. Everett III, Rev. Mod. Phys. 29, 463 (1957).

7.       L. E. Ballentine, Rev. Mod. Phys. 42, 358 (1970).

8.      J.S. Bell, and A. Aspect, Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics: Col-1987).

9.      Bovens, Luc, and Stephan Hartmann, Bayesian Epistemology (Oxford: Clarendon Press; 2003).

10.   Carnap, Rudolf, Logical Foundations of Probability (Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1950).

11.  Carnap, Rudolf, The Continuum of Inductive Methods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1952).

12.   Carnap, "Meaning Postulates", in Meaning and Necessity (Chicago: Phoenix Books; 1956): 222-229.

13.   Christensen, David, Putting Logic in its Place: Formal Constraints on Rational Belief (Oxford: Clarendon Press; 2004).

14.  J. A. Wheeler and W. H. Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, (Princeton

15.   A. Einstein, B. Podolsky and N. Rosen, Phys. Rev. 47, 777 (1935).

16.   E. Schr¨odinger, Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. 31, 555 (1935); ibid 32, 446 (1936).lected papers on quantum philosophy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,Press, Cambridge, 1934). Atomic Theory and Human Knowledge (Wiley, New University Press, Princeton, 1983).

17.  J. Von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Chap. VI,  pg. 417 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1955).

18.  Efrastious Manousakis, Founding Quantum Theory on the Basis of Consciousness.Unpublished? Department of Physics, Florida State University,

APPENDIX  for VECTOR IDENTITIES: Taken from “Introduction to Tensor Calculus and Continuum Mechanics.” By JH Heinbockel, Old Dominuum University.

The following identities assume that ~ A; ~ B; ~ C; ~D are diferentiable vector functions of position while

f; f1; f2 are diferentiable scalar functions of position.

1. ~A _ (~B _ ~C) = ~B _ (~C _ ~A) = ~C _ (~A _ ~B)

2. ~A _ (~B _ ~C ) = ~B(~A _ ~C) − ~C(~A _ ~B)

3. (~A _ ~B ) _ (~C _ ~D) = (~A _ ~C )(~B _ ~D) − (~A _ ~D)(~B _ ~C )

4. ~A _ (~B _ ~C) + ~B _ (~C _ ~A) + ~C _ (~A _ ~B ) =~0

5. (~A _ ~B) _ (~C _ ~D) = ~B(~A _ ~C _ ~D) − ~A(~B _ ~C _ ~D)

= ~C (~A _ ~B _ ~C) − ~D(~A _ ~B _ ~C )

6. (~A _ ~B) _ (~B _ ~C) _ (~C _ ~A) = (~A _ ~B _ ~C )2

7. r(f1 + f2) = rf1 + rf2

8. r _ (~A + ~B) = r _ ~A + r _ ~B

9. r_(~A + ~B) = r_ ~A+r_ ~B

10. r(f ~A) = (rf) _ ~A + fr _ ~A

11. r(f1f2) = f1rf2 + f2rf1

12. r_(f ~A) =)rf) _ ~A + f(r_ ~A)

13. r _ (~A _ ~B ) = ~B _ (r_ ~A) − ~A _ (r_ ~B)

14. (~A _ r)~A = rj~A j22!− ~A _ (r_ ~A)

15. r(~A _ ~B ) = (~B _ r)~A + (~A _ r)~B + ~B _ (r_ ~A) + ~A _ (r_ ~B)

16. r_(~A _ ~B) = (~B _ r)~A − ~B(r _ ~A) − (~A _ r)~B + ~A(r _ ~B)

17. r _ (rf) = r2f

18. r_(rf) =~0

19. r _ (r_ ~A) = 0

20. r_(r_ ~A) = r(r _ ~A)−r2~A

End of Ch. 8                                                       

p 116
 

Ch. 9

A FISHING EXPEDITION INSIDE HILBERT'S SPACE.

(Explode Hidden)

ABSTRACT

     At an earlier chapter we stated that “At the sub-Planck level of organization macroscopically insignificant perturbations in the initial conditions of the (intero, extero & propio) receptor (EM) field get reinforced / amplified by phase coupling with background internal / external (EM) noise until a (cortical) ‘attractor’ basin is targeted and a resonance-coupled, non-linear state transition is initiated.” A stream / flow of orderly subconscious events (arguably substreams of a postulated Universal stream) is thereby generated carrying as its content all of our thoughts and experiences and their associated ‘quale’. These comprise sense perceptual data (internal / external), memory-based abstract conceptual inputs and their associated quale.

     Introspectively the observer establishes a distinction between the “I” and a significant new piece of information about the object / event sensed or conceptualized. The “I” becomes the equivalent of a measuring instrument trying to choose a particular state from a linear combination of possible correlated states. The ‘intuition’ that precedes the choice represents an incomplete analysis / synthesis of relevant adaptive information, as such, a possibility of knowing or modifying the possibility of future events to occur. An introspective observation may act like an ‘operator’ (O), by comparing the original possible state vector |ψi> (in Hilbert space) and the ‘new’ contingency situation |ψi+1> = O |ψi> (operator acting inside this space). This way we may alter the possible states of consciousness with a modified probability for re-occurrence in a future situation. The state vector |ψi> is a linear combination of the basis vectors |i> describing all possible future scenarios associated with specific neural networks, where i= 1,2,…N. The sum of all N vectors and their associated probabilities represent all possible outcomes to choose from. In this chapter we proceed to analytically dissect out the adequacy of this interpretation. We found there is much more work to be done before a quantum dynamical interpretation of brain processing can be put to useful application.

INTRODUCTION.

     We have seen in the previous chapter quoted above the enormous difficulty faced in modifying classical logic parameters to a modal logic capable of assimilating in the particularities of the quantum dynamic processing reality of the brain system it hopes to describe. Now we turn to quantum theory itself in an effort to identify which features will seamlessly incorporate the descriptions of the empirical (ontological) facts of sense-phenomenal reality and the modal explanations of the abstract (epistemological) inferential deductions into a unified hybrid whole. It is anticipated that the mathematical and conceptual structure of quantum theory will have to be ‘mongrelized’ a little, like a molecule had to be modified and fashioned into a hybrid detergent species able to bring together such natural antagonistic pairs like hydrophilic and lipophilic functional groups into one common solvent. What kinds of theoretical modifications? Is it possible to equate the probability-bearing propositions arguably present in cortical brain “attractor basins” to their equivalent in quantum theory?

     There are two ways to approach this. One involves Bayesian Confirmation Theory or Manousakis reductionist efforts. The second is my rather unusual, less conventional approach and involves an attempt to flexibilize BOTH modal logic and classical quantum theory such that it may become an useful tool to study the brain dynamics along the lines suggested by Berkeley’s Freeman. This involves multidisciplinary aspects and I disagree with Manousakis who mixes up a "universal consciousness" with a subset of it he calls "personal consciousness". Similarly, Bayesian logic is not the exclusive logic that departs from the propositional type but it needs to be quoted as a guideline. Modifying conventional logic to make it more probabilistic is  difficult because it brings it closer to quantum theory and the structure of this hybrid is still unclear to me and much  everyone else. This is a preliminary attempt at clarification of issues encountered as it reaches into unexplored terrain.

     The main problem we have faced in our bold attempt to dissect quantum theory in search of common grounds bringing together  the domain of the visible macro-empirical with the invisibility of the Planck’s level of organization has been the difficulty of extrapolating across the conceptual bridge separating them. It is not difficult to visualize quantum theory as a special probability calculus rooted in a special propositional logic. But how do we project beyond the quantum theoretical states probabilities (defined on the orthocomplemented lattices on a Hilbert space H) of relatively simple binary systems to the supercomplexities inherent in the probabilities of cortical brain ‘attractor basins’ dynamics? It may well turn out that the qualitative jump from the finite, Boolean brain to the infinite, atomic behavior in a non-Boolean Hilbert space is meaningless? What follows is an account of this analytical effort where many more questions are raised than answered..  

ARGUMENTATION.

     For starters, let us first consider what is known at the atomic level of organization and then build up from there. One important first question we must ask ourselves about the classical quantum theory is its adequacy to incorporate modal features; e.g., are we satisfied with just eigenvalues describing the state of the system at a given moment (collapsed state) or should we venture into a dynamical description of those probable values some time into the future where modal considerations must be reckoned with? If the latter, we may not need to be concerned with the correlation between eigenvalues and eigenstates, yet, our modification effort’s worth is predicated on the possibility that the dynamic state should be able to reliably predict the probability of a given ‘value state’ (Born rule). The measured value state then represents a restricted subset of all possible value states present. Ideally, we need to rely on probability values for the different possibilities within a system and a projection on its future evolution, specifically, we should be able to pin point which of the possible dynamic value states has which probability.

     Considering the supercomplexity of dynamic states present in improper mixtures of multicomponent systems (as found at both the macro brain dynamics and sub atomic Planck’s level) an attempt to differentiate them into their constitutive subsystem components will not yield as much information, if any, about their entrails, e.g., even at the sub-atomic level, a mere modest ‘simulation’ with a much smaller two component, orthogonally-arranged ‘pure’ system. To illustrate let’s briefly follow-up on the ‘simpler’ sub-atomic level.

     Schrödinger described how, in a two particle system, a base for each one of the two component vector system |e_i> and |f_j> can be ascertained such that their biorthogonal decomposition tensor product (in a Hilbert space) can be represented as a linear combination of terms |e_i>|f_i> whose coefficients uniquely represent their possible value states. From these, a probability measure may be thus generated for this simplified two-component dynamic system. But, are dynamic states = intrinsic or relative value states of observables, both before and after being measured? Are the properties being considered those not intended but instead of {|e_i>& |f_i>} combined? Does it matter within the context of our stated limited goals? More important, how can these conclusions be extrapolated or expanded to include improper mixtures of subsystems of arbitrary multi-component systems, as would be possibly expected in brain dynamic systems?

      In theory we believe that in multicomponent systems, e.g., |e_i>, |f_i>, |g_i>, |h_i>……., individual units can be subjected to permutations and / or combinations and expressed as binary systems where the bi-orthogonal decomposition can be applied such that, e.g., {|e_i>& |f_i>}, {|g_i>& |h_i>}, {|e_i>& |g_i>}, {|e_i>& |h_i>}, etc. and can be considered as single components for the purpose of calculating the tensor products of pairs like {(|e_i>) (|f_i>& |g_i>)}, {(|h_i>) (|e_i>& |f_i>)}, etc. In this author’s opinion, this may be the equivalent of factoring out a tensor product Hilbert space (does not include factorization by axis rotations). But, what if the properties of the pair, e.g., {|e_i> & |f_i>} are different from either constituent |e_i> or |f_i> individually considered?

     Tentatively, and based on Dieks spectral theorem analysis (1995), one may consider possible value states in every system as the elements present in their density operator’s spectral decomposition. This claim is based on the results from further application of the biorthogonal decomposition theorem where the density operator of either one of the double components has an allegedly similar spectral resolution. Furthermore, it is not clear if the properties of the subsystems generated by either type of factorization are not influenced by that procedure, especially if one considers that ‘axis rotations’ can generate an infinite number of continuous component possibilities, each with an unknown relation to each other and to the totality of the composite system. Are (even?) atomic and other macro degrees of freedom ‘fixed’ or relative? At this point in our search for answers we have to hesitantly decide on one of two different approaches: either continue on the relativistic path or settle for a modal interpretation at the atomic level and hope that the higher levels of brain EM organization derive their attributes from their subsystems. Is this derivation reliable? If so, how do you go about correlating the brain composite system with their corresponding subsystems? We do not have easy answers at this moment but will continue in our fishing expedition, what is worth having is worth fishing for..

     Not being so familiar with the subtleties of advanced vector / tensor calculus, we fail to see clearly the advantage of other related modal approaches suggested (Clifton) like allowing one of the two component system mentioned become the null space P_i (Boolean set of all sums of P_i elements) orthogonally oriented to each of the factored out subcomponents Q_i in W such that each paired set thus obtained can be subjected to a spectral decomposition analysis as mentioned. This way, all possible values in the system is the set of all possibly valued projections obtained, i.e., the sum of all P’s and Q’s. While these results may be closed under the classical logic connectives, we fail to see how it can be claimed that each member in W is contained in the set of all possible properties. So much for our heroic attempts to reduce the complexities of real-time brain dynamics to an unreal, constrained, and simpler two-component system analysis. We may as well form the two component system from the pure quantum theory state and a ‘preferred’ value state. All suggestions are far from being able to assign an empirically adequate probability measure based on a set of identified possible properties, the latter so far defined as discussed. Could it be that a modal interpretation of quantum theory cannot be realized because of the infinite dimensional nature of Hilbert space and the impossibility of fixing variables applying Lorentz transformations? Same question can be asked about the algebraic approaches whose results are not always applicable to infinite-dimensional cases.

     In this  ‘fishing expedition’  there are limitations to the simpler two-component analysis of  X and Y.  This is so as the complexity of brain dynamics resists being fitted inside the strait jacket of the simple spectral analysis as discussed above for the reasons stated. Neuro-philosophical synthesis extends horizontally to the various relevant disciplines leaving the vertical in-depth analysis in a given area when that area has achieved prominence in the analysis. The general concept of dealing with complex dynamic systems (brain function included) by adopting and extending successful analytical strategies that worked for simpler systems is not new or so difficult in itself, but the multidisciplinary endpoint requires a speculation that is complex, realizing that some concepts  in specific areas are approached differently, creatively, speculatively or simply by "fishing". From this I have tried to build a heuristic base provoking interchange by others, so that what had been uni-dimensional, superficial thoughts can now stimulate and open ways for creative direction.  I'm moving the line between fact and fishing.

     We had dreamt that a modal approach to quantum theory would enable it to disclose, for every measurable moment in time, a set of possible properties in existence and their corresponding probabilities, i.e., for a given system with property P at time t, what is the probability it will have property P’ at a later time t’? This is specially true when following the trajectories of macro objects in metric space. But we cannot even guarantee a continuous trajectory / transition of the spectral components of a physical system in the relatively simple spectral decomposition analysis mentioned above. When dealing with stochastic dynamics like those found in the brain one must be able to characterize transition probabilities over infinitesimal time units in order to generate the relevant quantum probabilities sought after. So far we can only guarantee single-time probabilities. (See Bacciagaluppi, i993?) Should we invest so heavily on quantum ‘operators’ and ‘quantum states’ as the exclusive narrators of physical reality at the Planck level, not to mention the brain level? So much just for the atomic level under  consideration.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.

     After Dr. W. Freeman and Dr. Chris King’s interesting speculations and measurements on brain dynamics that lead to the introduction of the ‘attractor’ basin and 'transactional' model of brain dynamics it has been tempting to use their data and insights in the formulation of a hybrid sub-model of existential reality as an extension of the bio-psycho-social (BPS) model of consciousness. While neuroscience provides the raw empirical data of brain structure and function, its conceptual meanings are to be found outside the sense-phenomenal perceptual domain of discourse. Consequently our operational conclusions about the mind-brain conundrum are simultaneously ontological and epistemological (epistemontological) and we find it convenient to take advantage of the empirical successes of quantum theory (notwithstanding the questionable noumenal truth value of its measurements) to bring together the falsifiable empirical data and its conceptual meaning to the same melting pot. Because, at its roots, quantum theory is a calculus of probabilities, we need a quantum theory with a realistic interpretation of the ever changing dynamics of physical reality. This calls for a fundamental change in both the classical approaches of quantum theory and logic. While it may be possible, as briefly shown, to ‘translate’ quantum theory into a Boolean-type of classical probability such that unit vectors represent possible states of a physical system and projection operators correspond to ‘observables’, it is hard to believe how the inner product of two such operators and their associated spectrum (inside a non-Boolean Hilbert space, see von Neumann, 1932), can yield even minimal information about more complex systems like brain dynamics. It remains to be seen how reliable the results can be even at the Planck level of analysis, as discussed.

     Unfortunately, at this stage of our analysis, we have encountered a most interesting situation, as we force classical logic into a modal straight jacket and try to push quantum theory into a Boolean framework, the anticipated results of their possible fusion as a reliable measure of probable outcomes from the pleyade of possibilities in a brain ‘attractor’ basin scenario, it is now more distant than before we started as we move from the sub-Planck to the macro level of organization. Even at the Planck level, reliable results are only available at the relatively simple biorthogonal level of analysis. It is difficult not to feel like Jonathan Livingston Seagull..! J

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1. Albert, D. and  Loewer, B., 1990 . “Wanted Dead or Alive: Two Attempts to Solve Schrödinger's Paradox”, in A. Fine, M. Forbes and L. Wessels (Eds), PSA, Vol. 1 (Philosophy of Science Association, East Lansing, MI), pp. 277-28

2. Bacciagaluppi, G., 1995. “A Kochen-Specker theorem in the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics 34:1206-1215.

3. Bacciagaluppi, G. and Dickson, M., 1999. Modal Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

4. Bacciagaluppi, G. and Dickson, M., 1999. “Dynamics for modal interpretations,” Foundations of Physics 29: 8, 1165-1201.

5. Bell, J. L. and Clifton, R., 1995. “QuasiBoolean algebras and simultaneously definite properties in quantum mechanics,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 34:12, 2409-2421

6. de la Sierra, A.  2006. Part I: The Possible Quantal Interface Joining the Hybrid Nature of Reality. Telicom 19:4 (July-August): 34.

7. Dickson, Michael and Dennis Dieks, "Modal Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2007 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2007/entries/qm-modal/  The original ‘modal interpretation’ of quantum theory was born in the early 1970s, and at that time the phrase referred to a single interpretation, due to van Fraassen. The phrase now encompasses a ... modal interpretations of quantum mechanics,” Foundations of Physics, 31, 1403-1430. –––. 2001b. “A modal interpretation of quantum mechanics based on a principle of entropy ...Michael Dickson and Dennis Dieks  http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/entries/qm-modal/

8. Freeman, W. J. 1992. Tutorial on neurobiology: From single neurons to brain chaos. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, 2(3): 451-482. http://sulcus.   berkeley.edu/Freeman/manuscripts/ID6/92.html. 

9. King, Jeffrey C., 1996, Structured Propositions and Sentence Structure, Journal of Philosophical Logic 25: 495-521

End of Ch. 9                                                       

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Ch. 10

BEING AND BECOMING IN BRAIN DYNAMICS.

("We can no longer say that the past has been but is no longer, while the future will come to be but is not yet.")

(Uncertainty)

Abstract.

     From the many sense-phenomenal objects and / or events in our immediate environment (including memories) only a limited number of steady states of discrete, individualized neuronal patterns (cortical attractor basins) are set-up to respond exclusively to particular stimuli in the future. For example, olfactory receptors in the nose when activated would converge & activate a particular set of olfactory bulb neurons acting as a relay switch to a corresponding cortical attractor basin uniquely coupled, for each particular odor, to a corresponding different memory, emotional and physiological patterns of responses (mental state). When these signals were analyzed on the oscilloscope screen they were found to resemble chaotic systems with ‘attractor basins’. Once it was experimentally documented as the probabilistic nature of brain dynamics, we are forced to generalize it for ALL sensory receptors and consider not just the fleeting moment when the sensory stimulus is present, the ‘being’, as it evolves or ‘becomes’ past but in transit into a potential future, but also to predict with variable degrees of certainty its evolution into that future, the ‘becoming’ we may be able to control and free willingly choose from available ‘futures scenarios’ alternatives. In so doing we acknowledge an involuntary shift away from the reductionist physical approach into the metaphysical ‘emergence’ realm of ‘process’ philosophy. So be it!

         KEYWORDS.

attractor basins, being, brain dyna