[1]
INTRODUCTION

John Mikes' Commentary 12 is a particular challenge to me, chiefly because I am not a physicist. When I started the Karl Jaspers Forum with the main aim to discuss the mind-brain relationship, I was surprised to find that quite a few physicists were interested in this topic. Since then there have in fact been many valuable contributions to the discussion by physicists. Evidently this does not make me an expert in physics; but until further notice I assume that the basic conceptual questions are not different whether one deals with physics or with the mind-brain relation (or also with other questions). Thus I find it always of interest to discover common points of thinking in both fields.

I will start here (Part A) with some notes on JM's view as described in the last part of his commentary. My comments are largely in the form of questions. This is followed by some more general remarks in Part B, and a discussion of ontology in physics in Part C. Quotations from Mikes are in "quotation marks", my remarks are in [brackets].

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Part A

[2]
" (3) … The goal is a 'followable' working hypothesis for a construct of the world with the now paradoxical findings included, without an involvement of 'supernatural' help. I am aware that the supernaturalists will retort: "easy to exclude an extra supernatural, if you make it part of the natural" - but so be it. "

[ I am not certain about the meaning of "supernatural" here, does it refer to religious teachings ? Or to metaphysics, as in "realism" ? ]

[3]
" I have to start with the Plenitude, a zero-information infinite dynamic invariance of the all-interchanging everything. More than what we would include into a TOE and without the quantized equational restrictions of such. It is a total symmetry of a dynamic *process* in nonlocal and atemporal freedom - hard to visualize within the usual terminology of the physics-impaired. Not a static construct."

[ As a physics-impaired person, I assume that you mean a mind-independent (ie, metaphysical) process, even if it is not static, and from what you say in the following, this seems confirmed; but see also [7] below : perhaps you want to leave this undecided ? Or both simultaneously ? In alternation ? I am not trying to make a joke here, actually a continuous re-evaluation of one's position is probably more helpful than one or another firm conviction. This question will come up a number of times in the following. ]

[4]
" Since it includes everything, the infinite system occasionally ends up with some asymmetry as well, (if not otherwise: by grouping together similar elements) which, however, dynamically transcend back into the symmetrical invariance. Such asymmetric elements - symmetry breaks - are the Big Bangs and the resulting observable construct (complexity) is called a universe. The fulguration is atemporal and returns into the Plenitude-symmetry from which it formed. This is *"the Plenitude View".* I would not assign a MIR to the Plenitude: with its zero-information dynamics it is different from our concept of a "reality". However, it is 'MI' (= mind independent). "

[ What you call "the infinite system" ("everything") seems to be seen as mind-independent, and thus it does not include the mind. If this plenitude shows "asymmetries", it has already (MI-pre-fabricated ?) structures, which would seem to indicate presence of some information, despite its zero-information content. The second part of this statement contradicts the first - how do you explain this ? The way I understand the universe of physicists, it is not free of structure. It is what physicists call (ie, believe to be) reality, usually seen as mind-independently pre-structured. Is your "plenitude" different from that, and if so in what sense ? "Reality" in my opinion is (for everybody including physicists) the result of investing a reality-belief into created structures (derived from zero structure, 0-D); it does not come alone, without a subject (an "observer"). Also, how do you (or how does anyone) decide what "are" and are not "elements" in the sense mentioned by you ? This is the same question as : how did Wittgenstein decide what was and what was not "the case" ? ]

[5]
" IN such (Big Bang) fulguration, however, the observable complexity builds and dissipates and from the inside view it can develop into complexity-systems, in diverse and unlimited qualities in the unlimited amount of such fulgurational universes. In the case of our universe it is a space-time-causality system. "

[ As you say, this formulation is based on a mind-independent-structure view. Perhaps one should ask a practical question : how is the universe structured for an animal, in your opinion (or view) ? So far as I can make out, space, time, and causality are tools created by us (like all structures and tools), for the purpose of dealing with experience as it happens. Do you propose that they are mind-independent structures (since you say that the universe "is" such a system) ? ]

[6]
" * " The Universe-View" * - from the inside - is subject to the structure of the appropriate universe. Our view includes aeons (or picoseconds) of time, parsec-billions (or nanometers) of space, a causality-sense, which is in our culture quantitative (as in human mathematics). We have no access from this universe to other universes which may have totally different (physics?) structure and sensing/acting (mental?) capabilities. "

[ Do you mean the universes of other experiencers (say animals, or humans 5000 years ago, or in 5000 years from now), or else universes-in-themselves ? If not these, what are you referring to ? And actually, what is the reason for you to suggest that there "are" (or may "be") other universes?]

[7]
" This 'universe view' expands the plenitudinal-view symmetry break and restoration into a (long) time-expansion, a zero-sum process which we call evolution. (Darwin only considered a select part of life *buildup* phenomena in our terrestrial biosphere). This process of the universe-view is MIR(1), the 'reality' of our universe. It includes the development of higher complexity ingredients, where the response to information turned 'sensing', subsequently into 'thinking' (see above "Abstraction") as in such complexities as called the human animal. (My apologies to other thinking animals). It is MIR in the sense that the development of the mind is only passively included in the evolutionary process. It exists independently of (but including) the mind and its activity. "

[ The "passivity" of the mind needs clarification. One can insist that the structuring of color, smell, pain, is something which we do not deliberately decide, and the same is true for most structuring of shapes (Gestalten). The empiricists took this to mean (implicitly for the most part) that they are "given" in a pre-structured way ("to the senses"). But this is, in my opinion, where they got into difficulty, which has persisted to this day in science. The point is that even when no voluntary action is involved, the qualities and structures would not be there without our doing (ie, our action, which may be entirely non-deliberate, largely biologically determined). Is it not an error to conclude from the involuntary nature of the structuring process that they are mind-independently constituted ? ]

[ It seems that some theoretical physicists in particular leave the question of reality undecided, in limbo, and concentrate on mathematics without specifying what exactly is being mathematicised. This ("shut up and calculate") is probably better than naïve realism or materialism (ie, static metaphysics), but it does not help with the reality question. One has to acknowledge that reality is the result of the investment of reality-beliefs in (posited, asserted) structures created within experience. Some QM theorists agree in principle that they can only talk about experience, not about a world (or universe) in-itself. But there is a high MIR-relapse rate among them, it seems. ]

[8]
" To keep order, we include a second term, MIR(2), which is characterized from the starting point of the human mind. It contains the view of the universe and its evolution, as viewable by the mind, into which during the epistemic evolution, more and more of MIR(1) filters in. Accordingly MIR(1) includes the mind as ingredient, while MIR(2) concentrates on the mind's search, enrichment, for more access to complexities of the world and their interpretation "in(to) human terms". "

[ This proposed step points to an underlying difficulty : that in this view there is a primary subject/object split implied. Without this assumption there would be no need for two realities. This implicit belief in an ontological (for instance Cartesian) split continues to be one of the main problems of modern science. Further, the "interpretation" of the complexities of the world "into human terms" implies once again MIR - which is itself a consequence of the assumed s/o split. ]

[9]
" If research concentrates on the study of the mind, the objective of such study would become part of MIR(1) - researched by that same objective, a situation which does not promise too much success. It is the basic difficulty of such studies (as HM pointed out in other words). Maybe, after all, the inclusion of MIR(2) can be eliminated after we considered it. "

[ This is another aspect of the same MIR ("ontological") s/o split problem, the objective study of the subject (also called "the scientific study of consciousness") is a self-contradictory proposition. Subject and object are always part of the whole of experience, subjects cannot become objects, and objects cannot become subjects, and neither can be omitted (although objective science tends to act as-if the subject could be omitted). The split can indeed be eliminated, but not by objectification. ]

[10]
" In conclusion MIR is a dynamic term, the process of the universe we live in: an evolution (up and down) of its complexities. The mind searches for access to more and more of it, interprets the findings in human terms in a subjective process into 'objective knowledge'. So our 'objective' reality is a 'subjective' truth of the mind. Indeed it may be called a phenomenal reality … Max Velman writes: … "Greg Nixon reminds us that he also wrote "The world as experienced is intersubjectively verified and it is this we accept as reality. This world is not the thing-in-itself, as Kant forever made clear. It is not knowable in itself." Those statements should have made it absolutely certain that I understood you to mean *phenomenal reality* and not *reality-in-itself*." MV: I think this clears things up - phenomenal reality is observer-dependent. But it can represent autonomously existing events and entities whose existence need not be dependent on the experiences of those observers."

[11]
I would say the intersubjective verification is an important part of reality-belief-support. Other aspects need less social confirmation, such as gravity, or hunger. In terms of Ernst von Glasersfeld, one can talk about "viability" of concepts and other structures (rather than "verification", which tends to carry an MIR-connotation, cf Popper). The turn away from reality (or truth) in-itself is important. However, "autonomously existing events and entities whose existence need not be dependent on the experiences of those observers" is a misunderstanding, I would think. What one can do here is distinguish given experience (most experience is not invented by us) from structures, which are all created by us, even if not intentionally. "So our 'objective' reality is a 'subjective' truth of the mind." I agree, but one ought to add that objective realities are used as our as-if-tools. ]

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Part B

[12]
[ In the following, I will briefly respond to some additional points JM makes, as comments on TA32, in the first part of his C12, without repeating what I have said above. ]

" <1> … I am viewing the concepts from a natural science angle … "He said so" is no argument I would accept. "

[ This last is essential for any thinking about conceptual structures. ]

" The mind-brain relation is principally negated for two reasons: they belong into qualitatively different domains and the functions are not comparable (transmutable), necessary for a 'relation' development. "

[ I am not sure about the meaning of this statement. There is surely some relation between the two, no matter how they are defined, thus I don't see how it can be negated. ]

" The mental aspect of the complexity human is a complexity by itself and not accessible either by reductionist analysis in its complex qualia, nor by physical measurements on material compositions. No causal connection has been established between the brain function and the mind function so far. "

[ I agree with this part, but this only means that the relation is neither a reduction of one to the other, nor an objective causal one. ]

[13]
" <3> … the two concepts are [unrelated] (a quale and a tool). "

[ But tools and qualia are both mental formations (structures and qualities). This tells me that they can both be derived from a zero-point. ]

" In [13 of TA32] "we do not perceive them directly" standing for ultrasound (U-S) and ultraviolet (U-V) may be questionable, since our instruments which are 'perceiving' them are indeed extensions to our senses. "

[ I agree, though by "directly" I meant "without further tools or extensions in addition to the senses, or other effects like tanning" - but this is a question of definition. (Such extensions of our senses can go far, eg, a space probe to Jupiter, or cloud chambers, or tanks for catching neutrinos. Thus it may be better to refer to our unaided senses, even without reading glasses. The tanning effect is not usually perceived as a visual activity.) ]

[14]
" [concerning Vico] I would like to venture to include our human logic as well, as specifically not only a human "self-made tool", but also a tool made by our ongoing culture proper. "

[ I agree. ]

" [19] … transcendence. I like to use it as also a generalization of a "(word-)concept" - as the good old noumenon, as used at toddler-level (a "cat" for a piece of candy). I wonder if HM's "different sense of transcendence" may refer to metaphorically used concepts as well? "

[ Metaphors as extended or altered meanings of words would have some of the same properties as the more original meanings. But my intention here was the extension to the encompassing aspect of experience, as needed for comprehensive thinking; this can (sometimes) be provided by the use of the transcendence aspect of concepts in the second sense of "transcendence" which I mentioned.]

[15]
" In [20] "words are only used by humans" may be extended to animals 'who' *understand* words (a form of usage, however passive) like "heel" or other word-commands by tamers even without the use of body language. The active use of words has anatomical barriers, although a parrot produces understandable words, (and according to latest news, there is a kind of African parrot that even comprehends the meaning of some words it said). "

[ However, animals do not invent language in the human sense, nor are they dependent on language use in the same way. ]

[16]
" [30]: I agree with the failure of a TOE as an equational system. One cannot compose quantitative correlations to all-natural (complexity) systems. Quantizing is restricted to the already known parts, known by a reductionist analysis. "

[ This ("already known parts") is an interesting point. To what extent would you say this is recognized in the scientific community ? In view of the prominent tendency to extend objective theories to everything (including, not excluding, experience, as "the mind" or "consciousness"), one gets the impression : not by many. ]

[17]
" The buildup (emergence?) of complex qualia includes more, with interconnections, influences and modifications unknown. ? "

[ Here I would say : the "more" is the subject with his encompassing part of experience. ]

" [31] calls for "an MIR-belief ... as ... a barrier against ideas and means to try something else "

[ This is a misunderstanding. I do not call for MIR, but want to point out that MIR-belief is an obstacle to comprehension, and that it should be replaced by as-if-MIR. ]

[18]
" [33] - [35] are so all-encompassing in constitutionalist explanations that one is trapped into not detecting the "static" restriction for MIR. "

[ These three paragraphs are not explanations but a proposal for a method. They are central to my point of view : working metaphysics (as-if-MIR), to replace static metaphysics (traditional MIR). ]

[19]
" … When reading with [37] I was wondering how will all this lead us to transcend the bankrupt (yet in both technical and scientific sense so highly efficient) reductionist thinking? … "concepts can grasp experience to any desired degree, but never completely" is the big step into complexity-thinking: the natural systems, not categorizable fully and not buildable up from their (so far discovered, mainly physical) components. I refer here to the Aristotelian 'total': "more" - than the sum of such. I try to step up from the classic "more" (material ingredients) into today's sense (complex group-qualia). "

[ I agree with most of this. A point of difference is that I would try to avoid the word "discovered", because we structure the discoveries too - though it may be difficult to adhere to it in practice. Concerning the efficiency of MIR use : one may understand it as a (modified) continuation of the pre-word-conceptual thinking of animals, for whom this works much of the time. Reductionist thinking is probably alright so long one is aware of, and acknowledges, its limitations. It can be used as a special technique for dealing with experience, but it can for instance not be an overriding or first principle for investigation. ]

[20]
" In [19 of TA32] we met Abstraction, in [42] it comes again (as ab(s)trahere) as being enriched. I would view this capability as understanding the qualia-features without a 'specific carrier'. The "blue" (anything) or a "dog" (any kind). Such capability - developed with growing complexity of the human mind - constitutes IMO the fundament of thinking vs. sensing, the first step in "complexifying" the mind-aspect. "

[ Thinking becomes complex in part due to the transcendence effect, one might say. ]

" [50] … "thinking does not come from the brain, the brain comes from thinking." I had to look closer into the second part "

[ The second one is the important part. The crux of the mind-brain relation is that : the brain comes from the mind (not vice versa) in the same sense as all mental structures originate in experience (commonly called "the mind" or "consciousness"), which is our only entrance (see TA32 [50ff]). But this structure creation should not be mis-understood as only "social construction" (which is now a fashionable word) : social construction itself is derived (ie, it is a secondary step), since it requires structure building by individuals as its basis. ]

[21]
" … I found the first part obvious: physiological, physical, chemical functions cannot be transferred from the "movement of matter" (Engels) into another quale - the mental domain of thought, emotion, decision - the non-cgs describable movements. However ... Mark Hubey indicated … the multitude of neurons in cooperation can transcend quality barriers. I would now rephrase this and Lenin's maxim of "quantity going into quality" as: the multifold connectivity may assemble into a complexity of its own, maybe including more, not yet observed factors and develop new qualia. So far such additional functions did not show up in laboratory experiments … "

[ For me this is an erroneous argument. Because quantities are secondary developments of thinking, depending for instance on availability of numbers (cf. Hauser, R5 of TA32 [B5]) which originate inside originally unstructured experience, it is not possible to come from quantity to quality (both appear to be viewed objectively by JM and MH). The proposition is of the same type as trying to go from other concepts (eg, brain function) to mind (experience), or from object to subject. It is safe to say that this will never happen in laboratory experiments, nor elsewhere. ]

[22]
" In the [50s] HM sweeps through MIR and mid-brain topics, less impressive for me, since I consider the mind as just an aspect of the 'complexity human' (which in turn is part of the interconnected complex system of our 'existence ') with a MIR to which we have always just a partial access through the interpretations of our (subjective) mind always at the appropriate epistemic level. "

[ We have no access at all to MIR. Mind-independent also means mind-inaccessible. ]

[23]
" Although brain and mind are part of the (static) MIR, the aspect of the direct interpretations has been concentrated outward: instead of a real 'first person' observance of the mind it was done 'third person' way, i.e.. by experience collected in secondary information from processes and consequences both from our own person and from others. I feel this is a reason why the directly observable neurological (brain function) data are so impressive as being integrated for mind function (in a believe system rather than with proven causal connection). [56] states: "To talk about mind-independent reality can help in thinking, but one ought to acknowledge that it is fiction" just as are lots of accepted basic concepts in science, mostly identified by their consequences (energy, etc.). My proof is in the historical view of the natural scientific epistemology, e.g. 110 years ago the nuclear fission was not included in the human mind's "reality", although it was there in the then-MIR. Copernicus did not construct the planetary system with the Earth as part of it: it was within the MIR also before him, without our access to it. Allow me to skip the other 37,328 examples. "

[ The examples are proofs of changes in thinking, or as you say, epistemology. Epistemology is not ontology, it does not exist in, by, and for itself. Ontology is static fiction. For instance, " … Functional scientific statements are of the type "if one does A, one will find B, with probability C"; existential statements can also be formulated in this way, eg, : "if one assumes the Big Bang, it follows that … ", or "I am (positing myself as) so-and-so, and therefore … " Ontological statements can in this way be functionalized with a gain in possibilities of thought, while inversely functional ones can be made ontological only with a loss. " (from TA32[48]) ]

[ Thus instead : "110 years ago the nuclear fission was not included in the human mind's "reality", although we now say it was then there as a potential development of thought and action. If someone had thought of it earlier, it could have been used earlier as an MIR, or better, as an as-if-MIR ". The point about (as-if-)MIR is that we structure reality, all of it, always. One cannot get away from one's world - though as one creates it or works with it one can change the forms, while most of experience itself is given, not made by us. When you now say that it was then there, this is a backward extrapolation from present structured experience. One must say that, if one argues objectively. But this objective reasoning implies our present pre-structuring. ]

[24]
" Fiction? yes. We do not directly sense a molecule and it is NOT the composition of those atoms we assign to them: a water molecule does not contain H or O atoms, only their (supposed) remnants, multiples, dis/associations, etc. in described peculiarities of 'special' systems. "

[ But the same applies to a stone you hold in your hand. We create its structure. Not to acknowledge this is the error of empiricism. ]

[25]
" [58] … A "mind-brain relation", - Köhler's gestalt, is IMO irresolvable because of its unrelated categories and transcending domains, - unless (and THAT is fiction) - some thought machines are constructed that work on a non-physical basis to produce nonlocal, atemporal terms, quality changes in mental processes, or a sense of "reading mind" in a pure 3rd person objectivity, scientifically, reproducibly in its full complexity. (I hope that last thing will never happen). If we then connect the functions of such 'machine' with a physical system, THEN we can speak about brain-mind relations. That would supersede the bootstrap. "

[ Thought machines : the main point is for me that thought comes first, machines later. The sequence cannot be reversed, because tools are created inside experience (thought), not vice versa.]

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Part C

[26]
[ A propos ontology as fiction : how would it be to say that onta collapse instead of the wave function ? If I understand it correctly, Heisenberg's and Schrödinger's mathematical formulations are adequate for experience (prediction of experience, ie, of observation, measurement, handling, on the basis of prior experience); they establish a connection between the initial and the final measurement. This is an area of convergence of function, it seems, which is widely accepted as well founded, helpful, and persistent. In contrast, the question of the primary "being" of particles (are they micro-billiard balls, or standing waves like on a violin string ?) becomes ambiguous and may have no meaning, except for habits of thinking. Experience is the foundation, not an assumed MI-reality. ]

[27]
[ The measurement problem : "how can superpositions of different possibilities become one definite result, as a result of observation ?" Probability, or superposition, seem to be implicitly understood as mind-independent in this question. But are they "real" other than as a conceptual tool for experience-handling (ie, prediction) ? The result specifies the likelihood of later experience; the possibilities and super-positions would appear to be ephemeral tools, like the onta, and not primary realities. Thus the question may be wrongly posed if one asks "how observation can influence reality". In this case such a likelihood-in-itself of particle behavior, rather than experience, is seen as reality. It would seem that this MIR belief - that particles actually "are in a state of superposition" - led to the far-fetched example of Schrödinger's cat, where the ontological mistake is clear. We can experience (look at) a cat, or we cannot (because he is in a non-transparent box), but if we look at him we see him either alive or dead, not both. Similar MIR-beliefs seem to play a role in the many-worlds interpretation of QM. ]

[28]
[ A quotation from a recent article by Tegmark and Wheeler in Scientific American illustrates the still-prevalent MIR thinking in physics : "If unitarity and decoherence are taken seriously, then it is instructive to split the universe into three parts, each described by quantum states : the object under consideration, the environment, and the observer, or subject", and this is followed by " … our brains [rather than the subject] are inextricably intervowen with the invironment … " If we follow a 0-D view, the three parts are developed within one experience; this is in principle compatible with the preceding sentence. One recent opinion of particle physicists is that one should restrict oneself to analyzing experience rather than things. Perhaps one should really try to follow this through, and without MIR-relapse. To abandon static MIR-ontology of objects, such as particles, probabilities, and brains may not be a great loss; quite the opposite (quantum weirdness would then be replaced by MIR weirdness, cf TA1 R11). Ontic fixations, including probabilities and super-positions, are expendable ad-hoc tools, extra-polations from structured experience. Does this make any sense ? I would be interested in further discussion of this point.]

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REFERENCE

Tegmark M, Wheeler JA, 100 Years of Quantum Mysteries. Scientific American, February 2001.

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Herbert FJ Muller

e-mail <hmller@po-box.mcgill.ca>