Quantum mechanics and consciousness - Part 5/8: Mind and Physics as Levels Themselves?

5. Mind and Physics as Levels Themselves?

I have argued that there are multiple generative levels within both the physical and mental realms. The next hypothesis is that the physical and psychological are themselves generative levels linked together, so that physical dispositions as a whole are derivative from mental dispositions within living and/or thinking organisms. We entertain [8] the view that the dualism of mind and body is not an ad hoc division, but one that logically follows from the kinds of causation that exists within a universe in which there are both minds and bodies as distinct ontological substances connected as generative levels.

To see whether this works in practice, we have to consider the detailed requirements of any theory of psychology. At the simplest level of generalization, minds must be able to

• implement intended functions by feeling and thinking, then using motor areas,
• establish permanent memories, presumably by means of permanent physiological changes,
• form perceptions using information from the visual and auditory (etc.) cortexes,
• follow ‘internal’ trains of thought/feeling/imagining without necessarily having any external effects.

One way that these requirements can be accomplished is by means of the ideas presented so far, formulated in the following three principles:

1. I. Some physical/physiological potentialities (both deterministic and indeterministic according to quantum physics) are derived dispositions from minds as their principal cause. That is, minds predispose the dynamical properties of some physical objects.
2. II. The dispositional capacities of the mind are consequentially restricted (and hence conditioned) by their actual physical effects, by means of occasional causation.
3. III. The pattern of I and II is repeated for individual stages of more complex processes.

These principles together give what has been called conditional forward causation, or ‘top-down causation’. Note that we do not have a fourth ‘bottom-up’ principle that neural events directly cause events to occur in the mind. We do not have general matter → mind causation, although something resembling this does arise, namely selection. This is not causation in the sense of principal causation as producing or generating the effect, but is occasional causation as being a necessary prerequisite.

A strong argument for these three principles is that they are already similar to what is known already to happen in physics. According to quantum field theory we saw how virtual events predispose the ordinary quantum wave function. These virtual events operate deterministically and describe the operation of the electric, magnetic, nuclear and gravitational forces. They are not the actual events of quantum mechanics, as those are the definite outcomes of events like observations. Rather, they are a ‘prior level’ of ‘implicit events’ whose operation is needed in order to derive or produce the potentialities for events like observations. The principle (I) states the analogical result that mental events themselves are a ‘prior level’ of ‘implicit events’ whose operation is needed in order to produce the potentialities for physical events.

The argument for the principle (II) is more general. This principle can be seen as the law according to which your future life is restricted and influenced by your past actions (by selection). Physical events are in this way the necessary foundations for permanent mental history and structure.

Principle (III) has an important corollary connected with the observations of the above section on correspondences:

4. IV. The mind predisposes the brain to carry out those functions which ‘mirror’ or ‘correspond to’ the mind’s own functions.

Mental functions involve intermediate steps, and these intermediate mental steps predispose suitable intermediate physical steps (by I), and are in turn conditioned or confirmed by them (by II). Thus, the sequence of physical steps follows the sequence of mental steps, and the overall function of the physical process is analogous (in some sense) to the overall function of the mental process.

[8] I. J. Thompson, "DiscreteDegrees Within and Between Nature and Mind," in Psycho-Physical Dualism Today: An Interdisciplinary Approach, A. Antonietti, Ed., Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008, pp. 99-125.

-->

Previous post 4/6

Quantum mechanics and consciousness - Part 4/8: Generative Levels in Psychology

4. Generative Levels in Psychology

It is easier to understand this downward causation pattern within psychology. There are many examples of derivative dispositions in everyday life, in psychology, in particular in cognitive processes. The accomplishment of a given disposition requires the operation of successive steps of kinds different from the overall step. The original disposition on its operation generates the “derived dispositions” for the intermediate steps, which are means to the original end. An original “disposition to learn”, for example, can generate the derived “disposition to read books”, which can generate further “dispositions to search for books”. These dispositions can then generate dispositions to move one’s body, which in turn lead to one’s limbs having (physical) dispositions to move. These successively generated dispositions are all derived from the original disposition to learn, according to the specific situations. 

Another example of sequential and derivative dispositions is the ability to learn. To say that someone is easy to teach, or that they are musical, for example, does not mean that there is any specific action that they are capable of doing. Rather, it means that they are disposed to learn new skills (whether of a musical or general kind), and that it is these new skills that are the dispositions that lead to specific actions.

In this I follow Broad [7]: that there are “levels” of causal influence. Particular dispositions or intentions are not the most fundamental causes, but rather “intermediate stages” in the operation of more persistent “desires” and “motivations”. The intention to find a book could be the product or derivative of a more persistent “desire for reading”, and need only be produced in the appropriate circumstances. Broad would say that the derived dispositions were the realization of the underlying dispositions.

The pattern of “underlying propensity / distribution / result” for “mental sub-degrees” shows the steps by which deep motivational principles (purposes) in an “interior mind” lead to action. These purposes come to fruition by means of discursive investigation of ideas, plans and alternatives in what can be called a more exterior “scientific discursive mind”, as constrained by existing intellectual abilities. The actions of the sensorimotor mind select one outcome among many, as constrained by bodily conditions. Psychologists who have investigated perceptive and executive processes within the sensorimotor stage realize that these are far from simple. What we see is very much influenced by our expectations and desires, as well as by being constrained by what is in front of our eyes. There are subsidiary degrees of expectation, presentation of alternatives and resolution even during “simple” sensations. 

Consciousness enters into this picture whenever actions occur. All actions of desire or love are conscious actions, and part of the conscious awareness of at least some personality or person. Consciousness is therefore not a mental source itself, but an essential aspect of operations from mental sources.

[7] C. Broad, Mind and Its Place in Nature, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1925. 

Previous part 3/6

Quantum mechanics and consciousness - Part 2/8: Substances and Multiple Levels in Quantum Mechanics

2. Substances and Multiple Levels in Quantum Mechanics

A substance is defined as what exists over the finite duration between measurement events. The problem in quantum mechanics of understanding how substances exist has been long-standing. Some like Everett have suggested it is the wave function which exists continuously, but wave functions are mathematical entities and not physical. Others like Bohr have said that only events are real and hence denied that there anything which could be a continuous substance. 

My proposal is use the idea of propensities [5]. These are the underlying dispositions or causes which give rise to events when the conditions are appropriate. The event production may be deterministic or probabilistic. The important feature of propensities is that they are present continuously between events, at least according to the Born Law of quantum mechanics.  Propensities, therefore, can be identified as the substance of which quantum particles are made. The wave function is then the form of those substances, in particular their form as spread out in space and time. Quantum objects are thus substances that manifest themselves in some kind of form. The form of something tells us what its present structure is, and the substance of something tells us how it would behave in all future hypothetical circumstances (even if only by probabilities).

We can develop a theory of multiple levels, each with different kinds of objects and each existing in their own kinds of spaces.  We can show how objects interact between levels [6]. We can begin to understand this using the principles of quantum mechanics. Consider, for example, how the Schroedinger equation makes predictions for the wave function, which in turn predicts the probabilities of future events. The Schroedinger equation uses a combination of kinetic energy and potentiality that acts to evolve the wave function through time, based on the initial conditions. The wave function then acts to produce further discrete selection events based on previous selections.  In each case, objects of kind of A are producing further objects of kind B(n) based on previous objects B(n-1). The produced B(n) outcomes select what kind of outcomes are next possible.  Furthermore, this same pattern is repeated on multiple levels {A ➝ B ➝ C}.  Quantum physics has the levels  {energy ➝  propensity forms ➝ actual selections}.  Such patterns are familiar, since in classical physics we have a similar structure with the levels {potential energy ➝ forces ➝ acceleration}.  The pattern is also familiar to us from psychology in the sequence {desire ➝ thinking ➝ action}, as will be discussed later. 

When we start digging into quantum physics, we discover even more levels. The potential energy and kinetic energy that we started with in the Schroedinger equation are not themselves fundamental, but are generated by the virtual processes of quantum field theory. Potential energy is produced by the exchange of gauge bosons: of photons of electromagnetic energy, of gluons for nuclear energy, etc. And kinetic energy comes from mass, which is mostly not ‘bare mass’ but is the collection of the energies of virtual substances in a cloud around a given center.   This means that we have an even longer chain of multiple generative levels in quantum physics, something like {variational Lagrangian ➝ virtual fields ➝ virtual events➝  potential and kinetic energies in the Hamiltonian ➝ propensity fields described by wave functions ➝ selection events for actual outcomes}. 

These kinds of levels are generally acknowledged to exist within quantum field theory, but with differing opinions about their significance. Many physicists and philosophers of physics want to assert the particular ‘reality’ of one of the levels and say that the prior levels are ‘merely calculational devices’ for the behaviour of their chosen real level. The question of simplicity, to be answered in order to apply Occam’s razor, is whether it is simpler to have multiple kinds of objects existing (even within multiple generative levels) each with simple dispositions, or simpler to have fewer kinds of existing objects, but with more complicated laws governing their operation. 

      Allowing the multiple generative levels all to exist in ‘their own way’ has fruitful consequences for generalizing quantum physics to include new kinds of causation. Admittedly this is going beyond standard quantum mechanics, but at least this is yielding predictions for possible new science which can be confirmed or falsified as all science should be examined.

[5] I. Thompson, "Real Dispositions in the Physical World," Brit. Jnl Phil. Science, vol. 39, pp. 67-79, 1988.
[6] I. J. Thompson, "Derivative Dispositions and Multiple Generative Levels," in Probabilities, Causes and Propensities in Physics, Dordrecht, Springer, 2008, pp. 245-257.

Part 1 here.

Derivative Dispositions and Multiple Generative Levels

The analysis of dispositions is used to consider cases where the effect of one disposition operating is the existence of another disposition. This may arise from rearrangements within aggregated structures of dispositional parts, or, it is argued, also as stages of derivative dispositions within a set of multiple generative levels. Inspection of examples in both classical and quantum physics suggests a general principle of `Conditional Forward Causation': that dispositions act 'forwards' in a way conditional on certain circumstances or occasions already existing at the `later' levels.

This is a previous article of mine, published in the book: M. Suárez (ed.), Probabilities, Causes, and Propensities in Physics, Synthese Library, Springer, 2011. [pdf]

1. Introduction

Recently, the much philosophical work has emphasized the importance of dispositions for realistic analyses of causal processes in both physics and psychology. This is partly because of the attractiveness of the thesis of dispositional essentialism, which holds that all existing things have irreducible causal powers, and such views are advocated by [many philosophers]. The thesis opposes the views of Ryle [1949] who sees dispositions as merely `inference tickets' or `promises', and Armstrong [1969] who sees them as derived from universal laws combined with nondispositional properties. Mumford [2005] articulates a common aspect of dispositional essentialism, to imagine how the concept of universal laws could be rather replaced by talk of specific objects and their dispositions.

It may well be that concepts of more sophisticated kinds of dispositions allow us to make headway in understanding the above complications within the framework of dispositional essentialism. I therefore continue the analysis of kinds of dispositions, to consider the possibility of derivative dispositions, and later consider whether these together may form a structure of multiple generative levels. This paper therefore consists of proposals for what those concepts might mean, and of analyses of examples in physics and psychology that appear to need such concepts for their understanding. We need to distinguish the cases whereby new dispositions come about from rearrangement of parts, from possible cases where they are `derived' or `generated' in some more original way.

2 Beyond simple dispositions

2.1 Changing dispositions

Most examples of dispositions in philosophical discussions are those, like fragility, solubility, radioactive instability, whose effects (if manifested) are events. If a glass exercises its fragility, it breaks. If salt shows its solubility, it dissolves, and the manifestation of radioactive instability would be a decay event detected say with a geiger counter. However, physicists want to know not merely that these eventsoccur, but also how the dispositions themselves may change after the manifestation event. In the cases here, the fragility of the parts or the stability of the nuclei may change as results of the manifestation events, and it is still part of physics to describe the new (changed) dispositions as accurately as possible. Such descriptions are part of dynamical accounts, as distinct from descriptive accounts events.

Sometimes, new dispositions may be ascribable after an event which could not be done so before an event. The fragments of a broken glass may be able to refract light in a way that the intact glass could not, for example. The dissolved salt may be to pass through a membrane, in contrast to the dispositions of the initial salt crystals. The fragments of nuclear decay may possibly decay by emitting electrons in a way the parent nucleus could not.

In general, it appears often that new dispositions may be truthfully ascribed as the result of the operation of a prior disposition. If the ascription of dispositions is attributed to the existence properties of some object, then it appears that, in the above examples, new dispositions come into existence as the manifestation of previous dispositions. Since now one disposition leads to another, some philosophical analysis is called for.

2.2 Rearrangement dispositions

The existence of some of these new dispositions may perhaps be successfully explained as the rearrangement of the internal structures of the objects under discussion, which are then presumably composite objects. The refraction by pieces of broken glass, in contrast to the original smooth glass, has obvious explanations in terms of the shapes of the new fragments. Salt's diffusion through a membrane, once dissolved, is presumably because of the greater mobility of salt ions in solution compared with the crystal form.

Science is largely successful in explaining such dynamical evolutions of empirical dispositions of natural objects. It bases the explanations in terms of changes in their structural shapes and arrangements of their parts, along with the fixed underlying dispositions or propensities of these parts. It is from the dispositions of these parts that, according the structure, all their observed dispositions and causal properties may be explained.

The existence of new dispositions by rearrangement of the parts of an object, I take to be non-controversial within existing philosophical frameworks. It appears that typical philosophical analyses need only slight modifications to take into account the way the derivative dispositions of an aggregate are explained in terms of recombinations of the dispositions of its parts.

2.3 Derivative dispositions

However, it also appears that not all dynamical changes of dispositions occur by rearrangements of parts, and these are what in this paper I want to call derivative dispositions. There are some cases, to be listed below, where new dispositions come into existence, without there being any visible parts whose rearrangement could explain the changes. The next section gives some examples of what appear to be such derivative dispositions, and this is followed by a more general analysis of how these might work.

If there turns out to be a sequence of derivative dispositions, then the combined structure may be said to be that of `multiple generative levels'. We will see some examples below.

3 Examples of derivative dispositions

3.1 Energy and Force

If we look at physics, and at what physics regards as part of its central understanding, one extremely important idea is energy. Physics talks about kinetic energy as energy to do with motion, and potential energy as to do with what would happen if the circumstances were right. More specifically, if we look at definitions of force and energy which are commonly used to introduce these concepts, we find definitions like

• force: the tendency F to accelerate a mass m with acceleration F/m.
• energy: the capacity E to do work, which is the action of a force F over a distance d,
• potential energy field: the field potential V(x) to exert a force F = -dV/dx if a test particle is present.

As Cartwright [1989] points out, force is not identical to the product ma, because it is only the net forceat a point which is important. An individual force is only by itself a tendency which may or may not be manifested. It is a disposition, as is energy generically, as well as potential energy. Furthermore, we may see a pattern here:

• potential energy field: the disposition to generate a force, and
• force: the disposition to accelerate a mass, and
• acceleration: the final result.

I take this to be an example of two successive derivative dispositions, where the effect of one disposition operating is the generation of another. An electrostatic field potential is a disposition, for example, the manifestation of which is not itself motion, but which is the presence now of a derivative disposition, namely a force. The manifestation of a force may or may not occur as motion, as it depends on what other forces are also operating on the mass. The production of a force by a field potential does not appear to be something that occurs by means of the rearrangements of microscopic parts, but appears to be more fundamental, and almost sui generis. It is clearly in need of philosophical inspection, as it appears that field potentials, force and action form a set of multiple generative levels.

Admittedly, many physicists and philosophers often manifest here a tendency to say that only potential energy is `real', or conversely perhaps that `only forces are real', or even that `only motion is real', and that in each case the other physical quantities are only `calculational devices' for predicting whichever is declared to be real. Please for a while apply a contrary tendency to resist this conclusion, at least to the end of the paper. In §5 I will be explicitly evaluating such `reductionist strategies, along with the comparative roles of mathematical laws and dispositional properties within a possible dispositional essentialism.
 ............

Whole article here.

Levels of Causation

Two recent presentations have started to describe levels of causation in nature. These are what I called multiple generative levels, as discussed in various articles I have previously listed.

The first is a video made by Brian David

This is based on a script we wrote together, entitled "Theistic Science: An open-minded look at the cause of reality":

The second is a blog post by George Gantz

He wrote "Causation – another highly disputed concept in physics".  After discussion of previously-suggested possible ways to describe top-down causation, he finds them unsatisfactory, and in the last three paragraphs describes the ideas I am advocating.

Causation in this sense is similar to top-down causation, but puts the disposition (a higher level structure) as the primary cause and the circumstances and form of the underlying system as secondary. In the language of dispositional essentialism, there is a generative process of causation flowing from dispositions and a selective process resulting from the underlying circumstances of the object or system. In many cases, the result of the top-level disposition is to create or change dispositions at the next level, in a cascade of causation operating across multiple levels.

Thompson provides a series of examples of causation flowing though multiple generative levels in physics and psychology and reviews the work of a number of other experts in these fields. “Summarizing the quantum mechanical case, we see that here again, the principle causes act forwards down a set of multiple generative levels whose range of actions at any time is selected from all those presently possible, as constrained by past events.” P.67 When applied to psychology, the model places the role of intention (disposition) as central to the process of causation. Thompson also applies the model to the question of the highest generative level – the dispositions of God.

While this new model of causation working top-down in generative levels may seem more complex that the reductionist model we started with, it does a far better job at explaining the way the world works. It resolves all the criticisms of reductionism.

(The page number refers my book "Starting Science From God" indicated on the right)


Both these presentations give suggestions for how God can be related to the universe in the way theism expects to happen. This is, in a rational manner we may yet understand, that God both sustains and enlivens all physical, mental and spiritual processes continually.

God is Life Itself

We are going to within theism, and say that theism affirms that life itself is identical to God. For this, the concept of ‘life’ will be defined. We will show in theistic science how this is connected with the Love that is God. That is a long demonstration that depends on many pieces of theory and evidence and will only be fully sketched later. For now, we simply affirm the central point: 

Postulate 7  God is Life Itself. 

That is, God has life in himself. This is implied by the claim of Christianity in John 5:26: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself."

We have to understand in practical terms what life means here. Modern science has been progressively reducing the idea of anything specific that can be called life. In our new context, we want a general concept which can be used for all psychological, biological and physical processes. I acknowledge that physical objects are not normally taken as ‘living’ in the normal sense, and elsewhere in this book I have stressed that they are ‘dead’. Yet here a particularly inclusive concept is required. We will therefore give the 

Definition: Life of an object is the most fundamental (or: original, deepest) disposition: whatever it is that gives rise to its actions and capacities for interactions. 

An object’s life is therefore that from which all of its behavior is derived, given its environment. In God’s case, the life consists of the divine Love as postulated in the previous chapter. In the case of other objects, persons, etc., we have yet to work out what the most fundamental dispositions are, but whatever they are, that is their life. When we talk of ‘derivation’ of capacities from the ‘most fundamental dispositions’, we must allow ourselves to use the theory of ‘derived dispositions’ within multiple generative levels, as described in my article here.

Core theism asserts that, remarkably, God is that life itself. This means that the behavior of all objects derives from God. We have yet to see how this is done and how a single God can be the life itself of multiple living creatures. And, of interest to us humans, we would especially like to know who is in control at each stage. Who decides the course our life? 

The task of science is to explain the dispositions and causal powers of all objects and to understand what is the life of humans, animals and plants, etc. The materialist view is that all these have a life which is reduced entirely (and only) to that of the fundamental dispositions of the composing atoms and molecules, and that these constituent particles have the powers as discovered by physics. If this were true and were combined with theism, we would have to conclude that atoms and molecules were divine. In that case, it would follow that the fundamental particles would be divine and would be indestructible and eternal since they have life in themselves and ‘live’ from themselves. If it is not the particles themselves that are divine, then perhaps it is the energy from which they are produced. This line of thought has indeed been followed by many atomic philosophers, from Democritus into the twentieth century.

A non-reductionist view is also possible. Such a view says that we have some kind of life—whether vital, mental, or spiritual—that does not derive from that of our constituent atoms but has a different origination. Most of us sense that this might or ought to be true, as we have reasons to believe that our spiritual and rational lives do not originally spring from physical causes. We may have difficulty, though, maintaining such a view in a way that is coherent with the conclusions of modern science. The view of scientific theism is even more divergent, as it insists that all our life is non-reductionist, since it originates from God. Even the fundamental powers of elementary particles come from that source, a theist insists. Our challenge is to make detailed sense of these claims, while avoiding a pantheism whereby we (or atoms) are part of God or whereby God is part of us.

Extracted in part from Chapter 12 of Starting Science From God.

HOW Mental Purposes can be Powerful in the World

We want to believe that purpose is powerful in human lives and probably in nature, but many of us also believe in a science which knows nothing about purposes, and which leaves little elbow room for purposes to have any effect!  We want to believe that purposes are powerful, but we do not really see how this can be so. What is really going on when purposes influence the world? What is the truth here?

We have deep problems as we try to form our sciences. We believe and intend that purposes are effective, but we do not really know how to connect this insight with our theoretical and empirical knowledge in the sciences. We may have a good idea how purpose makes its mark in the religious, social and psychological realms, but as yet we have no good idea how purpose can be effective in biology and physics. These two sciences are concerned with detail, and our details so far are missing. Here I seek first to justify this summary of our current predicament, and then to convey a new vision of how purposes may be powerful, and become real causes, in both the human and the natural worlds.

What does not exist cannot have any power. So, if a purpose is to have power, it must exist, or it must be related to a causal aspect of what does exist. Otherwise it would be a powerless epiphenomenon. Let us consider the preliminary possibility that only natural things exist, so that powerful purposes might be discoverable as aspects of natural causes.

Does nature itself act with a purpose? To form a precise question, consider nature according to accepted physical laws. Some physical laws portray something like ‘purpose’. There are laws of conservation of energy, laws of thermodynamics, and variational principles. All these laws appear to describe the reasons for the actual operation of nature.  Physicists say that ‘entropy must never decrease’, and that ‘nature seeks the least action’, because of laws like these. However, physicists have looked at the above laws, such as the variational principle, and emphasize that it is not the case that nature explores possibilities like humans do when thinking. In all cases, to ask for the power of purpose according to the physical sciences is a tall order, since physics knows little or nothing of those purposes we hold dear.

In another approach, many people believe that modern physics leaves small gaps through which purposes may yet creep in, by means of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the indeterminism of quantum physics. Physicists from Eugene Wigner¹ to Henry Stapp² have suggested that mind can influence nature at the point of measurement, by means of choosing some preferred outcome. Others, such as John Polkinghorne³, suggest that indeterminism inherent in chaotic systems allows a similar process.

However, while quantum physics may be indeterministic about the detailed outcomes for some classes of microscopic events, namely decoherent measurements, it is not completely arbitrary. Rather, it makes very precise predictions for the probabilities of those outcomes, and, furthermore, the time evolution of these probabilities is completely deterministic. Purposes might allegedly choose when decohering measurements occur (as Stapp suggests), or perhaps change the probabilities of different outcomes. In the first case, the scope of influence is extremely limited, and hardly plausible as a means of expressing powerful purposes. In the second case, purposes would change the probability rules of quantum physics, in just the same way that they would have to change Newton's laws of motion if they were to influence classical systems. The long-term conservation of energy and momentum remains just as constraining as before. Modern quantum physics by itself, therefore, leaves only miniscule and insufficient gaps through which purposes may be effective.

So let us for a while suspend science’s natural cautiousness and its ‘methodological naturalism’, and consider the possibility of a new ‘science of purposes’: a new programme of research that includes and builds on modern science, though without its monist prejudices. We should not be timid or ashamed about this, or feel that we lose the ground we stand on. Perhaps scientists might worry that ‘anything goes’ if we do not stick with the foundations we know, so we will need an extended view with definite structural principles, and these should include (something like) current physics as a limiting case. We seek an account that allows purposes to be causes, while agreeing with the structures, events and processes that make up physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology. There may possibly be disagreement only about the underlying causes.

This is of course, to start with, an intellectual exercise, but such an exercise has its uses. Many of us have seen evidence for powerful purposes: in ourselves, and elsewhere. But evidence for what, exactly? We need a detailed theory here, one that could be verified or refuted like other scientific theories, and fail or prevail. A theory would link disparate pieces of evidence together, and then we think we begin to properly understand. Parapsychology, for example, has stagnated from the lack of such a theory. A new theory would make predictions. In fact, many experiments only suggest themselves after a theory is under scrutiny. What is shameful is that we do not yet have even a possible such theory. This portrays a serious lack of imagination on the part of us theorists!  Let me tell you, therefore, what my vision suggests for such a theory. Then let us, like good scientists, judge by the results.

☼

 This new account is based on several principles taken to be universal, some of which exist already in today’s science. Since I must be brief, consider the following points:

1. Particular objects in the world exist, and all are composed of some substance in some form. Pure forms without substance cannot exist, whether they be information, mathematics or functions.
2. All existing things have irreducible causal powers: probabilistic dispositions or propensities are an essential part of the nature of everything existing.
3. For simplicity, take the substance of a thing not as something unknowable, but as the underlying disposition or propensity from which, according local structures, all its other dispositions and causal properties may be derived.
4. Every microscopic operation consists of generative ‘discrete degrees’ (read à as ‘gives’):
    propensity itself à propensity in a distributed form à event.
5. Each stage or degree is like a ‘part,’ and exists in its own manner.

The above principles are arguably the foundation of a realist interpretation of quantum physics, as discussed further below. The essential dispositions of an elementary particle are the propensities characterised by the charges, masses and other quantum numbers that determine its capacities and probabilities for interaction. Now for what is new:

6. Each stage of a generative triple is itself composed of parts with this three-fold structure. Thus we have a recursive structure of embedded details like a fractal. The next level of detail, for example, would be an ennead of nine sub-degrees.
7. Physics and nature as we know them are not the whole picture, but are in fact ‘merely’ the ‘event stage’ of a bigger picture operating with the same structural principles.
8. The ‘big picture’ has a triple that is more commonly known as:
   ‘soul’ (propensity itself) à ‘mind’ (propensity in a form) à ‘body’ (visible events).
9. At this global level, the ‘propensity’ should, if you are happy with this terminology, be more accurately termed ‘spirit’ or ‘love’, and only the ‘body’ stage regarded as ‘natural’ and visible to physics.

Perhaps scientists imagine that there is no need for this kind of scheme, but we are already suffering from a lack of precisely such universal ideas from philosophy. This so far is a relatively simple vision that, like a fractal, points to expanding vistas of complexity on closer examination. Unlike a fractal, this scheme points to expanding ranges of quality within. Let us see some details.

All stages are individually objects composed of some propensity (substance) in some form. This applies to ‘soul’ and ‘mind’ as well as to the natural world. Each is a really existing object (by principle 5) with causal powers (by principles 1 and 2), at one of the following stages:

• The soul itself (by principle 6) has itself three ‘heavenly’ sub-degrees:
  ‘spiritual love’ à ‘wisdom’ à ‘faithfulness in action’.
• The mind itself (similarly) has three ‘mental’ sub-degrees:
  ‘interior mind’ à ‘scientific discursive mind’ à sensorimotor mind.
  • Each of these has three parts, very probably as Jean Piaget⁴ and Erik Eriksson⁵ have begun to describe in their stages of cognitive and affective development.
• The natural body itself has three ‘physical’ sub-degrees:
  pre-geometric processes à virtual processes à actual processes.
  • ‘Pre-geometric processes’ have themselves three parts:
    but as yet only speculation, in for example loop theories of quantum gravity.
  • ‘Virtual processes’ have themselves three parts:
    Lagrangian variational à virtual fields à coherent virtual events.
  • ‘Actual processes’ have themselves three parts:
    Energy operator (Hamiltonian) à wave function à decoherent actual events.

The above is a structure of recursively embedded discrete degrees that could be expanded upon in much more detail. Consider some degrees as examples.

The final triple for ‘actual processes’ shows the operation of the Schrödinger equation and decoherence, the most basic dynamism of quantum physics. Physical energy is active, so is represented as a mathematical operator which generates the space and time distribution of the wave function as constrained by initial conditions. This distributed wave function, after some finite time, produces actual events as the selection of one outcome among many ‘decoherent alternatives,’ as constrained by previous selections. The precise nature of these selection events is so far only known in rather extreme cases involving medium and large objects, so there is new physics to be discovered here. 

The overall structure of the ‘physical degree’ is currently much debated among physicists. There is general agreement that the energy and wave functions appearing in the ‘actual process’ degree are not simple, because kinetic energy from mass and potential energy from interactions are both dynamically generated by the virtual processes of quantum field theories. However, there is no good agreement about the most fundamental stage of what gives rise to these virtual processes, and, especially, what gives rise to the space-time background for virtual events. I mention loop quantum gravity, as one attempt to explain how space-time areas and volumes might be produced. There are many speculations about quantum gravity, and how space-time might be dynamically generated, but there is little agreement even about what such a theory should look like. I hope that my present scheme would enable some general principles to be elucidated that might guide theory formation, and enable eventually a realistic interpretation to be found.

The triple for ‘mental sub-degrees’ shows the steps by which deep motivational principles in the interior mind – purposes – lead to action. These purposes come to fruition by means of discursive investigation of ideas, plans and alternatives in the more exterior ‘scientific discursive mind’, as constrained by existing intellectual abilities. The actions by the sensorimotor mind select one outcome among many, as constrained by bodily conditions. Moreover, psychologists who have investigated perceptive and executive processes within the sensorimotor stage realise that these are far from simple. What we see, for example, is very much influenced by our expectations and desires, as well as being constrained, of course, by what is in front of our eyes. They would agree that there are subsidiary degrees of expectation, presentation of alternatives and resolution even during ‘simple’ sensations.
In order to encompass the above examples of operation in both physics and psychology, let me postulate the following dynamical principle to apply universally at all levels.  The basic principle could be called ‘conditional generative causation’, according to which:

10. Changed propensities in each degree are generated by prior propensities that act according to what is already actual in both the current and subsequent degrees.

Each degree is therefore activated by ‘influx’ from prior stages, while the present range of actualities constrains what influx is possible, and also how propensities change at those prior degrees. The new science of purposes sees, therefore, a whole multi-level structure linked everywhere together asymmetrically: by influx from ‘above’, and by constraints from ‘below’. The propensities (loves) of the very first degree are constant. The final degree of actual selections in nature has no potentialities for changes to itself, so it is the cumulative ‘bottom line’ that is fixed and permanent as history, and therefore acts as kind of ultimate container to all previous degrees.

Note that there are detailed constituent events in both of any pair of prior and produced degrees. Because of all these microscopic events, there will be successive influx from the prior degree reciprocating with sequential constraints by the produced degree, and this alternation will repeat itself longest if the patterns of the constituent events are most similar in the two degrees, and they do not get out of step. By a sort of survival of the fittest, this in the long term gives rise tocorrespondences of function between adjacent degrees. We may conversely say that the functions in distinct degrees sustain each other in a kind of resonance when they are most similar in the patterns of their constituent events. Our minds and brains sustain each other by influx and constraint, for example, when psychological and neural processes are most nearly isomorphic to each other in their functional description. There is much detail here to be learned by derivation and observation, not just in mind-brain functioning but throughout living organisms. Discrete degrees are not of a continuous substance with each other, but, we see, have functional relations that make them ‘contiguously intertwined’ at all stages, and at all levels of detail at each stage.

How, in this vision, do we link with the physical degrees, and how do purposes work in the apparent face of physical laws? Here, they do not squeeze through any gaps in our explanations, but work through the normal processes by means of which physical propensities are all originally generated from prior loves. They follow this flow of influx, modifying it as allowed by the constraints of what is already fixed at each stage.

For physics, this means that the ‘deepest principles’, such as the Lagrangian subject to variations, and presumably the even deeper theories of quantum gravity, will have certain parameters that depend on prior discrete degrees in the rational and sensory minds.  This is a new result in our science of purposes. Does it break physical laws? First note that, on the realist position here of objects being composed of all their propensities, physical laws are identical with the description of how these propensities in fact operate. Quantum electrodynamics, for example, describes how electrons of certain masses and charges interact with each other and with photons. We need another law to say how the propensities may themselves vary, or not vary. The details are part of the general theory, still to be found, of pre-geometric processes. Do we know for sure that the electron charge is constant? Physicists have in fact imagined slow variations of this (the fine structure constant), but are we allowed to speculate about local more rapid variations on neurological time scales? The meaning of the laws of conservation of energy and momentum would have to be reconsidered in such a situation. Presumably, physicists would conclude that the system in question could not be considered sufficiently isolated.

A good new theory must allow a natural world that is not an illusion, nor just the product of human minds. It should also be consonant with our best accounts of psychology and theology. The power of purpose is not omnipotent, as in some New Age stories, for in fact there is often resistance to the elaboration of purposes. A good theory must explain the phenomenon of ‘contrary tendencies’: of limitations as well as of empowerments, and of bitterness as well as love.

Purposes, in this vision, are produced by particular forms of love – particular affections – as these generate the next stage of thought, and begin to be worked out in particular forms or ideas in the mind.  We would thus distinguish the loves of good things from the purpose or intention that works towards achieving them.

Purposes therefore become powerful by working through, and modifying, the normal routes by which loves and thoughts work through all of the pre-geometric and virtual stages towards actual effects. Depending on what has already actually happened in ourselves and in nature, purposes generate thoughts and plans, and then also physical potentialities for the desired actual outcomes. Sometimes historical actualities facilitate purposes by providing the materials for the accomplishment of the end. At other times, they may slightly (or sharply) limit the range of possible actions, and thwart the working out of prior purposes. Such frustrating situations must be worked around, or limited cooperation sought, since history cannot be abolished. That is the deepest challenge for those being led by good purposes.
A theistic theory may possibly be based on the above scheme. This would take all of the above, but now, as activated by an ‘influx of propensities’ from the Divine Source in a manner similar to the way that discrete degrees sustain each other. This would also explain how to sustain inanimate nature apart from living creatures. The whole soul/mind/nature ‘created structure’ would not be self-sustaining, but all its processes and sub-processes would come themselves to have eventually a functional form that is an image and likeness of the details of the Source. The Divine would presumably be a unity that has infinite and perfect details. It (He) would again not be of a continuous substance with creation, but of a distinct discrete degree that is yet intertwined and ultimately sustaining at all stages of every particular finite object, “rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds”⁶. He “sends rain on the just and on the unjust”⁷, and we only vary in our reception depending on how our historical actions give present constraints. This may be already known to many of us – the challenge is to enable connections with the rest of our knowledge about nature as well as about people.

☼

 Maybe it is too soon for these kinds of ideas to be accepted in science, since not all the simpler options have been examined and found wanting.  My aim here, therefore, is to demonstrate in a sort of existence proof that it is possible to have a scientific theory of mind and purposes which is coherent with good physics and good psychology, while also being spiritually plausible. This is not a mathematical theory, but is more an elucidation of what general ideas could replace those of ‘particle’, ‘wave’ and ‘field’ to describe the substances by means of which we interpret our equations, and what kinds of structural and dynamical relations the new substances should have.

Where do we have to search in history for a vision along these lines? Antonio Damasio⁸ recently found fruitful similarities with the works of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) for his vision of unified mind and body. I do not need to go back that far, as I find the essentials of the above ideas already in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). With Swedenborg⁹, the ideas are firmly embedded in a radical reworking of Christian theology, philosophy and psychology, and we need now at least similar concepts to help form new scientific theories.

The ideas discussed here should not just remain in books long ago published, in our imaginations, or in short essays of today, but must be expanded and examined for explanatory and predictive power, to enable the development of a new science of purposes. Empirical testing then becomes practicable. Then, and only then, will we have demonstrated how purpose in a vision has power in a life, to struggle against (and with) the limitations of what already exists and who we already are. Then, to the benefit of all society, we will know for sure how purposes in our lives have power within both our human and our natural worlds.

 For more detail, see my book introduced at www.beginningtheisticscience.com

1. E. Wigner, “Remarks on the Mind-Body Question,” pp. 284-302 in The Scientist Speculates, I.J. Good (ed) Basic Books, 1962.
2. H. Stapp, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, 1993.
3. J. Polkinghorne,  “Chaos Theory and Divine Action,” In Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue, ed. W. M. Richardson and W. J. Wildman, Routledge, 1996
4. J. Piaget. The Language and Thought of the Child, Harcourt, Brace & World. 1926;
   J. Piaget, Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood, Norton, 1962.
5. E. Erikson. Childhood and Society, Norton, 1963.
6. Jeremiah 32:19
7. Matthew 5:45
8. A. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, Harvest Books, 2003.
9. E. Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom, 1763: Swedenborg Foundation, 2003

Mind-body dualism

How mind and body are distinct but intertwined. 

See www.newDualism.org for reviews and articles about all kinds of theories.

Preliminary articles concerning mind-body dualism:

Discrete Degrees Within and Between Nature and Mind
Examining the role of dispositions  (potentials and propensities) in both physics and psychology reveals that they are commonly derivative dispositions, so called because they derive from other dispositions. Furthermore, when they act, they produce further propensities. Together, therefore, they appear to form discrete degrees within a structure of multiple generative levels. It is then constructively hypothesized that minds and physical nature are themselves discrete degrees within some more universal structure. This gives rise to an effective dualism of mind and nature, but one according to which they are still constantly related by causal connections. I suggest a few of the unified principles of operation of this more complicated but universal structure.

Ten Principles

A new account of the role of mind in nature is based on several principles taken to be universal, some of which exist already in today’s science.

Dualism in Descartes and Swedenborg

Swedenborg used Descartes as a symbol of his desired resolution of the mind-body problem in favour of ‘spiritual influx’, but we see that Descartes’ position was substantially different in a number of ways. We consider a number of modern objections and puzzles about dualism, and how Descartes and Swedenborg each might respond.

Dualism: a Causal Correspondence Theory

A suggestion is made how the mind and brain might fit together intimately while still maintaining distinct identities. The connection is based on the correspondence of similar functions in both the mind and the quantum-mechanical brain.

Are Quantum Physics and Spirituality related?

It is particularly valuable to discuss questions concerning quantum physics and spirituality together, in order to see the connection between them. There is an urgent reason for discussing this link, because there are people who want to identify these things, giving a monism rather than (at least) a dualism. There is a widespread feeling that somehow that they are connected, but some ‘new age’ people want to say that quantum physics tells us about spirituality. We have read in Swedenborg that any such connection could  not be quite so simple, so we need to understand in more detail what is going on.


Full details at www.beginningtheisticscience.com/ 

Chapter Synopsis of the new book "Starting Science From God"

 Brief outline of the structure of the book and its arguments:

Preface

The status of theism, and current debates
Acknowledgements

I. Preliminaries

1. Introduction
General discussion about the possibility of scientific theism today.


2. History
Brief(!) discussions of historical philosophical treatments of theism, and of theories of connection between God and the world, and between mind and nature.


3. A Way Forward
Describing the 'minor' changes necessary for science for science and for religion, in order to form together a way forward.

II. Ontology

4. Power and Substance
We must distinguish between form, substance and potentiality (like Aristotle), in order to make a realist ontology based on process logic. I give a general introduction to the realist ontology that will be used throughout this book. The ontology of form and substance, united in nature and distinguishable only by the mind, is one that dates from Aristotle and was still held by Descartes and Leibniz.


5. Multiple Generative Levels
Exposition concerning multiple generative levels, based on the asymmetric processes of generation from cause to effect, and selection from previous effects to future causes. Simple examples from classical & quantum physics and psychology.


6. A Dynamic Ontology
Summary of philosophical viewpoint of Part II, where substances are defined in terms of underlying dispositions, and also exist and operate within a generative structure of levels.

III. A Scientific Theism

7. Plan of Approach
Start from specific postulates of theism (just as physics theories start from their own a-theistic postulates), and see what can be deduced concerning minds and nature that is consistent with those postulates, as listed within Chapters 8-19.


8. The ‘I am’
That God exists, and that God is One, are the basic starting postulates of any theism.


9. God is Not Us
Nor are we part of God. To be loved, we must be other from God. The most distinctive feature of theism is that God is distinct from the world, in particular that there is something essential to humans that is distinct from God. The reason for this is that God’s love is unselfish, and unselfish love cannot love itself.


10. Images of God
In the Genesis story, man was made ‘in his image, according to his likeness’. The creation story leading up to this suggests that plants and animals were partial contributions to this making, and from biology we know that there are a great many internal similarities of plants and animals with humans. Although somewhat controversial, this implies that plants and animals are also in the image and likeness of God, but to a lesser extent.


11. God is Love
That God is love, as asserted by most traditional and modern theisms, has rarely been understood properly from the philosophical point of view. The nature of love is to want and then to achieve more than what is already obtained. God as Love wants to share its own with all of creation for the longest time possible, so all objects in creation are given the capacity to make something different in their future. Since God is Love, according to theism, divine love is the substance or being of which God is formed. Then, because created objects are a kind of image of God, we can conclude that something like love is the substance of all things in the world.


12. God is Life Itself
All our life is provided by God, and there is no life apart from God. If we could use the principle that ‘one is at least where one acts’, God would be immanent in His creation. Being eternal Life Itself, He is also transcendent of His creation.


13. God is both Simple and Complex
God is a unity in which there is no limit to the infinity of what may be intellectually distinguished, but what is not in fact separated.


14. God is Wisdom, and Action
That God is also Wisdom itself, and proceeding Action, so we have triad within God. This wisdom is the source of our own wisdom, understanding & knowledge.


15. God is Transcendent and Immanent
The distinction between the transcendent God and the finite creation depends on the distinction between the actual forms of created things and their received life. Thus we have neither pantheism nor deism, but what is a thorough-going theism: ‘God in everything, but distinct from everything’. Note that the ‘in’ here is not that of constitution, but of being hidden from the outside.


16. We Act Sequentially
That, in us, love and wisdom choose when to act. God may have foreknowledge of our free decisions, but time exists for us, and we still must will our own actions according to our understanding: with our own freedom.


17. We are Composite, as Spiritual, Mental and Physical
That God is Love, is Wisdom, and is also Life or Action in himself are what we can intellectually distinguish. Because what is unified and continuous in God is imaged in creation with what are distributed discretely, and these distributions function similarly by images of the God-world relation, we conclude that creation must have three realms, the first a reduced and distributed image of divine love, the second a reduced and distributed image of divine wisdom, and the third a reduced and distributed image of divine power and action.
The spiritual realm contains the separate loves in creation, including desires, loves, affections, motivations, purposes, dispositions, etc. The mental realm contains the separate carriers of wisdom, namely thoughts, ideas, understandings, rationality, plans, ideologies, beliefs, etc. The physical realm deals with all the separate final actions and effects, including the entire sets of things we know from external observations and physics.


18. We are Sustained by Influx From God, Directly and Indirectly
The traditional view of God creating the world is by fiat, taking literally the commands ‘fiat lux: let there be light’ and so on. The creation of substantial objects, still, involves God giving them their being (since he is being itself). Furthermore, in process logic, there is no power without substance. Or without (some kind) of presence.


19. God is Equally Present in All Subparts
Thus God must be immanent in every part of creation, and in every part of that part. And in every realm that influences each part and each sub-part. God must therefore be imaged (in some way) in each thing of love, and each thing of thought, and each physical thing, as well as in the interior realms of all of these.


20. The Theistic Universe
Taking an overall view of the universe from the above theistic principles.　

IV. Theistic Science

21. Methods
The previous Part III outlined an abstract structure of degrees and sub-degrees. Now in Part IV is the time to work out what these are in terms of the language and sciences that we already know, if possible. I call this the process of ‘identification.’ This is now longer deduction from theistic premises, not the least because now I call on meanings in ordinary languages and in the sciences, and these will have historical and contemporary overtones that certainly cannot be called deductive conclusions!


22. Discrete Degrees in the Mind
Discuss generic operation of sub-degrees in the mind, namely thought of loves, thought about thoughts, and thought about sensations & actions. These are identified as ‘higher rational’, ‘scientific rational’ and ‘external mind’ respectively. The sub-sub-degrees within these, and relation to the levels of cognition and affection discussed by Piaget, Gowan and Erikson.


23. Spiritual Discrete Degrees
When identifying the three main degrees of spiritual, mental and physical, I deliberately placed a spiritual degree above that of our normal mental life. That is because I read a great many reports of ‘peak experiences’, including those called visionary, mystical, out-of-body, near-death and spiritual, and I am convinced that there does indeed exist a realm about which we are normally unaware. I claim that this is the spiritual realm, and I have therefore identified this as ‘love’, the principal degree 1 of the three degrees. These must constitute some kind of heavenly states. An extensive discussion of misconceptions concerning the nature of the spiritual.


24. Discrete Degrees in Nature
The divine source does not produce all physical effects directly, but it produces via spiritual and natural stages what we see as natural dispositions or natural propensities. It is these dispositions or propensities, also known as causes, forces, potentials, quantum propensities) which lead to the ultimate physical interactions and events. The physical dispositions are a very limited ‘remnant' of Divine Power, and they operate in a way which corresponds to the characteristic operation of the Divine.
The stages and substages are directly related to problems in pregeometric gravity, quantum field theory, and in ordinary quantum mechanics. Prediction that there exists some actual selection processes in nature, in order to solve the (generalized) measurement problem.


25. Mind-body Connections
We derive a theory of mind and brain connection that establishes in intimate relation between them. It is not a relation of identity, or a relation of aspects or points of view. It is more a relation of inner and outer, or cause and effect: propensities in the brain are the causal product of mental actions. The mind and brain fit together by approximate analogy with hand and glove, or, better, with tissue and skin. The analogy is most precisely with thefunctions of tissue & skin, and not so much with their material shape. The mind provides all the directed activity of the brain, just as the tissue of the hand provides all the directed activity of the skin of the hand.
There are continual relations between minds generating brain dispositions, and brain events selecting which mental powers can act. This reciprocity means that the longest-lasting psychophysical structures have similar functional patterns in the mind and they body, and these similar functions we call 'correspondences’.

V. Applications

26. Evolution
That God cannot create self-sustaining organisms immediately, and neither can God instantaneously create robust receivers of divine love, since they need a history of their own actions in order to live as if from themselves. This implies that God needs evolution: descent by modification. Argue that this essentially the same as for mental and for spiritual (re)generation. That is, God has to manage external and internal changes in a gradualist manner: ab initio creationism is impossible. There is ‘theistic selection’ in addition to Darwinist natural selection.


27. Consciousness
In this framework, we are conscious of our actions when love and wisdom come together to make those actions. We are not directly conscious of our loves, and we are conscious of our thoughts only by reflective awareness at some upstream level.


28. Spiritual Growth
That we want permanent spiritual growth, and that this does not come quickly, but by cumulative joint actions of our own loves and wisdom. Not from one by itself, or from suffering alone, or from ‘elevated consciousness’. Look at stages of spiritual growth that starts in our higher rational, and continues in with our spiritual loves, especially in relation the sequence described in Genesis chap. 1.


29. Errors and Evils
What can we say about the problem of evil? Only some preliminaries: that Divine omnipotence is not absolute (since persons have love as their being, so cannot be arbitrarily remade): love always overrules omnipotence. That God can indeed create a stone he cannot (in practice) lift: that stone is us! Preliminary discussion of the real questions concerning freedom and evil.

VI. Discussion

30. Metaphysics
Responses, in the light of this book, to the philosophers and their queries as discussed in Chapter 2. Discussing in particular relations to ideas of Aquinas, Descartes and Whitehead (the leading ontologists who include mind and God in their theories).


31. Formal Modeling
The possibility of formal modeling of physical structures, and of limited modeling of mental structures. Dispositions can be partially modeled as procedures or functions, but not every aspect of them.


32. Possible Objections
Collection of frequently asked objections, and my responses.


33. Conclusions
Brief summary.


A. Theistic Postulates
A convenient summary


B. Further Resources
  Some relevant websites.

Bibliography
Index