This is a Festschrift in honour of Valtteri Arstila, a professor of theoretical philosophy at the University of Turku. The book is structured in three sections. The first two—‘Mind and Action’ and ‘Time and Temporal Experience’—include papers focussed on issues particularly close to Arstila's own research specialisation. The final section contains papers on various further philosophical issues. The first section, ‘Mind and Action’, collects together contributions on a variety of topics such as consciousness, content, agency and normativity; encompassing approaches from within analytic philosophy, phenomenology and the history of philosophy. The second section, ‘Time and Temporal Experience’, collects together papers on topics including the nature of time itself; of our experience of time and of historicity and temporality more broadly; approaching these issues from a variety of perspectives including historical approaches. The final section brings together papers that touch on issues within philosophy of science, logic, philosophy of language, political philosophy and more besides.
The paper examines the potentialities-centred interpretation of quantum theory developed by David Bohm in his 1951 book Quantum Theory and aims to situate it within a general ontological framework, focusing on Charlie Martin's views.
Mainstream cognitive neuroscience typically ignores the role of quantum physical effects in the neural processes underlying cognition and consciousness. However, many unsolved problems remain, suggesting the need to consider new approaches. We propose that quantum theory, especially through an ontological interpretation due to Bohm and Hiley, provides a fruitful framework for addressing the neural correlates of cognition and consciousness. In particular, the ontological interpretation suggests that a novel type of “active information”, connected with a novel type of “quantum potential energy”, plays a key role in quantum physical processes. After introducing the ontological interpretation we illustrate its value for cognitive neuroscience bydiscussing it in the light of a proposal by Beck and Eccles about how quantum tunneling could play a role in controlling the frequency of synaptic exocytosis. In this proposal, quantum tunneling would enable the “self” to control its brain without violating the energyconserv ation law. We argue that the ontological interpretation provides a sharper picture of what actuallycould be taking place in quantum tunneling in general and in synaptic exocytosis in particular. Based on the notions of active information and quantum potential energy, we propose a coherent way of understanding how mental processes (understood as involving non-classical physical processes) can act on traditional, classicallydescribable neural processes without violating the energy conservation law.
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why physical processes give rise to consciousness (Chalmers 1995). Regardless of many attempts to solve the problem, there is still no commonly agreed solution. It is thus very likely that some radically new ideas are required if we are to make any progress. In this paper we turn to quantum theory to find out whether it has anything to offer in our attempts to understand the place of mind and conscious experience in nature. In particular we will be focusing on the ontological interpretation of quantum theory proposed by Bohm and Hiley (1987, 1993), its further development by Hiley (Hiley and Callaghan 2012; Hiley, Dennis and de Gosson 2021), and its philosophical interpretation by Pylkkänen (2007, 2020). The ontological interpretation makes the radical proposal that quantum reality includes a new type of potential energy which contains active information. This proposal, if correct, constitutes a major change in our notion of matter. We are used to having in physics only mechanical concepts, such as position, momentum and force. Our intuition that it is not possible to understand how and why physical processes can give rise to consciousness is partly the result of our assuming that physical processes (including neurophysiological processes) are always mechanical. If, however, we are willing to change our view of physical reality by allowing non-mechanical, organic and holistic concepts such as active information to play a fundamental role, this, we argue, makes it possible to understand the relationship between physical and mental processes in a new way. It might even be a step toward solving the hard problem.
Panpsychism is often thought to be an obviously mistaken doctrine, because it is considered to be completely inconceivable how the elementary particles of physics could possibly have proto-mental properties. This paper points out that quantum theory implies that elementary particles are far more subtle and strange than most contemporary physicalist philosophers assume. The paper discusses Louis de Broglie’s and David Bohm’s famous “pilot wave” theory which under Bohm’s later interpretation suggests that, say, an electron is a particle guided by a field carrying active information, the latter of which can be seen as a primitive mind-like quality.
The paper explores whether David Bohm’ s proposal about quantum theoretical active information, and the mind-matter scheme he developed on the basis of it, can help us to explain consciousness (Bohm and Hiley 1987, 1993; Bohm 1989, 1990 ; Pylkkänen 2007 ). Here it is important to acknowledge that other researchers in philosophy of mind and consciousness studies have also made use of the concept of information in their theories of mind and consciousness. For example, Dretske (1981 ) and Barwise and Seligman (1997 ) have explored the possibility that information in the sense of factual semantic contents (i.e. information as meaningful data that represents facts correctly or incorrectly) can be grounded in environmental information (i.e.information as mere correlation, e.g. the way tree rings carry information about age). For Dretske this was an important part of his attempts to give a naturalistic account of sensory experiences, qualia and consciousness. During recent years the notion of information has been used to explain consciousness most notably by David Chalmers (1996 ), as well as by Giulio Tononi and his co-workers (Tononi and Koch 2014 ; Oizumi, Albantakis and Tononi 2014 ). The strategy of this paper will be to first describe Bohm’ s mind-matter scheme, and then to briefl y consider Chalmers’ and Tononi et al.’ s ideas in the light of this scheme.
This paper explores the theme “quantum approaches to consciousness” by considering the work of one of the pioneers in the field. The physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) not only made important contributions to quantum physics, but also had a long-term interest in interpreting the results of quantum physics and relativity in order to develop a general world view. His idea was further that living and mental processes could be understood in a new, scientifically and philosophically more coherent way in the context of such a new world view. This paper gives a brief overview of different – and sometimes contradictory - aspects of Bohm’s research programme, and evaluates how they can be used to give an account of topics of interest in contemporary consciousness studies, such as analogies between thought and quantum processes, the problem of mental causation, the mind-body problem and the problem of time consciousness.
What role might the structure of language play in our perception and conception or reality? This central question of traditional metaphysics was given a new twist by David Bohm's experimentation with a new mode of language, the rheomode, which gives the verb the basic role in the structure of language. This paper briefly describes Bohm's experiment and discusses some of its ramifications.
Recent advances in the field of quantum cognition (Pothos and Busemeyer 2013; Wang et al. 2013) suggest a puzzling connection between fundamental physics and the mind. Many researchers see quantum ideas and formalisms merely as useful pragmatic tools, and do not look for deeper underlying explanations for why they work. However, others are tempted to seek for an intelligible explanation for why quantum ideas work to model cognition. This paper first draws attention to how the physicist David Bohm already in 1951 suggested that thought and quantum processes are analogous, adding that this could be explained if some neural processes underlying thought involved non-negligible quantum effects. The paper next points out that the idea that there is a connection between fundamental physics and the mind is not unique to quantum theory, but was there already when Newtonian physics was assumed to be fundamental physics, advocated most notably by Kant. Kant emphasized the unique intelligibility of a Newtonian notion of experience, and this historical background prompts us to ask in the final part of the paper whether we can really make sense of any quantum-like experience (whether experience of the empirical phenomena in the “external world” or the “inner world” of psychological phenomena). It is proposed that intelligibility is a relative notion and that, regardless of initial difficulties, quantum approaches to cognition and consciousness are likely to provide valuable new ways of understanding the mind.
This paper briefly discusses some of David Bohm’s views on mind and matter and suggests that they allow for a stronger possibility for conscious free will to influence quantum dynamics than Henry Stapp’s approach.
This article discusses the prospects of quantum psychiatry from a Bohmian point of view, which provides an ontological interpretation of quantum theory, and extends such ontology to include mind. At first, we discuss the more general relevance of quantum theory to psychopathology. The basic idea is that because quantum theory emphasizes the role of wholeness, it might be relevant to psychopathology, where breakdown of unity in the mental domain is a key feature. We then discuss the role of information in psychopathology, and consider the connections with quantum theory in this area. In particular, we discuss David Bohm’s notion of active information, which arises in the ontological interpretation of quantum theory, and is suggested to play a fundamental role as the bridge between mind and matter. Some such bridge is needed if we are to understand how subtle mental properties are able to influence more manifest physical properties in the brain (all the way to the molecular and possibly microtubular level), and how changes in those possibly quantum-level physical processes are able to influence higher cognitive functions. We also consider the implications of the notion of active information for psychopathology. The prospects of implementing the Bohmian scheme in neuroquantal terms are then briefly considered. Finally, we discuss some possible therapeutic implications of Bohm’s approach to information and the relation of mind and matter.
Researchers have suggested since the early days of quantum theory that there are strong analogies between quantum phenomena and mental phenomena and these have developed into a vibrant new field of quantum cognition during recent decades. After revisiting some early analogies by Niels Bohr and David Bohm, this paper focuses upon Bohm and Hiley’s ontological interpretation of quantum theory which suggests further analogies between quantum phenomena and biological and psychological phenomena, including the proposal that the human brain operates in some ways like a quantum measuring apparatus. After discussing these analogies I will also consider, from a quantum perspective, Hintikka’s suggestion that Kant’s notion of things in themselves can be better understood by making an analogy between our knowledge-seeking activities and an elaborate measuring apparatus.
Western philosophy and science have a strongly dualistic tradition regarding the mental and physical aspects of reality, which makes it difficult to understand their possible causal relations. In recent debates in cognitive neuroscience it has been common to claim on the basis of neural experiments that conscious experiences are causally inefficacious. At the same time there is much evidence that consciousness does play an important role in guiding behavior. The author explores whether a new way of understanding the causal role of mental states and consciousness could be provided by the ontological interpretation of the quantum theory (Bohm and Hiley, Phys. Rep. 144:323–348, 1987; Bohm and Hiley, The undivided universe: An ontological interpretation of quantum theory. Routledge: London, 1993). This interpretation radically changes our notion of matter by suggesting that a new type of active information plays a causal role at the quantum level of reality. The author thus considers to what extent the alleged causal powers of consciousness involve information, and then moves on to consider whether information in (conscious) mental states can be connected to the information at the level of quantum physics. In this way he sketches how quantum theory might help to throw light upon one of the grand challenges facing the social sciences and the humanities, namely the question of whether consciousness plays any genuine causal role in the physical world.
Sammanfattningsvis är mitt förslag således att medvetandets natur är relaterad till fundamentala teorier inom fysiken, särskilt kvantteorin (jämför Hameroff och Penrose, 2014). Detta innebär inte att medvetandet kan reduceras till kvantteori, men att kvantteori kan spela en viktig roll när vi letar efter en plats för medvetandet i vår naturuppfattning. Annars finns risken att vi får nöja oss med en materialism där medvetandet saknar plats och roll, eller en dualism där medvetandet är ett epifenomen utan några kausala krafter (se Pylkkänen, 2007, 2017).
This chapter provides a brief historical introduction to quantum theory, and shows that the theory opens up some radically new ways of thinking about the place of mind and consciousness in nature. Quantum theory is all about learning, on the basis of scientific experiments, to question the "obvious" truths about the nature of the physical world and to come up with more coherent alternatives. The chapter considers the famous two-slit experiment. It explores what the different interpretations of quantum theory say about situations like the two-slit experiment, and also considers what kind of theories of mind and consciousness some interpretations have inspired. The attempt to explain mind and consciousness in terms of the quantum theory involves heavy speculation. The advances in quantum biology, while not giving direct support to quantum brain theory, perhaps make a biologically grounded quantum theory of consciousness seem less inconceivable.
Bohm and Hiley suggest that a certain new type of active information plays a key objective role in quantum processes. This paper discusses the implications of this suggestion to our understanding of the relation between the mental and the physical aspects of reality.
The received view in physicalist philosophy of mind assumes that causation can only take place at the physical domain and that the physical domain is causally closed. It is often thought that this leaves no room for mental states qua mental to have a causal influence upon the physical domain, leading to epiphenomenalism and the problem of mental causation. However, in recent philosophy of causation there has been growing interest in a line of thought that can be called causal antifundamentalism: causal notions cannot play a role in physics, because the fundamental laws of physics are radically different from causal laws. Causal anti-fundamentalism seems to challenge the received view in physicalist philosophy of mind and thus raises the possibility of there being genuine mental causation after all. This paper argues that while causal anti-fundamentalism provides a possible route to mental causation, we have reasons to think that it is incorrect. Does this mean that we have to accept the received view and give up the hope of genuine mental causation? I will suggest that the ontological interpretation of quantum theory provides us both with a view about the nature of causality in fundamental physics, as well as a view how genuine mental causation can be compatible with our fundamental (quantum) physical ontology.
The theme of phenomenology and quantum physics is here tackled by examining some basic interpretational issues in quantum physics. One key issue in quantum theory from the very beginning has been whether it is possible to provide a quantum ontology of particles in motion in the same way as in classical physics, or whether we are restricted to stay within a more limited view of quantum systems, in terms of complementary but mutually exclusive phenomena. In phenomenological terms we could describe the situation by saying that according to the usual interpretation of quantum theory (especially Niels Bohr's), quantum phenomena require a kind of epoche (i.e. a suspension of assumptions about reality at the quantum level). However, there are other interpretations (especially David Bohm's) that seem to re-establish the possibility of a mind-independent ontology at the quantum level. We will show that even such ontological interpretations contain novel, non-classical features, which require them to give a special role to “phenomena” or “appearances”, a role not encountered in classical physics. We will conclude that while ontological interpretations of quantum theory are possible, quantum theory implies the need of a certain kind of epoche even for this type of interpretations. While different from the epoche connected to phenomenological description, the “quantum epoche” nevertheless points to a potentially interesting parallel between phenomenology and quantum philosophy.
In recent decades some cognitive scientists have adopted a program of quantum cognition. For example, Pothos and Busemeyer (PB) argue that there are empirical results concerning human decision-making and judgment that can be elegantly accounted for by quantum probability (QP) theory, while classical (Bayesian) probability theory fails. They suggest that the reason why QP works better is because some cognitive phenomena are analogous to quantum phenomena. This naturally gives rise to a further question about why they are analogous. Is this a pure coincidence, or is there a deeper reason? For example, could the neural processes underlying cognition involve subtle quantum effects, thus explaining why cognition obeys QP? PB are agnostic about this controversial issue, and thus their kind of program could be labeled as “weak quantum cognition” (analogously to the program of weak artificial intelligence as characterized by Searle). However, there is a long tradition of speculating about the role of subtle quantum effects in the neural correlates of cognition, constituting a program of “strong quantum cognition” (SQC) or “quantum cognitive neuroscience”. This paper considers the prospects of SQC, by briefly reviewing and commenting on some of the key proposals. In particular, Bohm and Hiley’s active information program will be discussed.
Ladyman and Ross (LR) argue that quantum objects are not individuals (or are at most weakly discernible individuals) and use this idea to ground their metaphysical view, ontic structural realism, according to which relational structures are primary to things. LR acknowledge that there is a version of quantum theory, namely the Bohm theory (BT), according to which particles do have denite trajectories at all times. However, LR interpret the research by Brown et al. as implying that "raw stuff" or haecceities are needed for the individuality of particles of BT, and LR dismiss this as idle metaphysics. In this paper we note that Brown et al.'s research does not imply that haecceities are needed. Thus BT remains as a genuine option for those who seek to understand quantum particles as individuals. However, we go on to discuss some problems with BT which led Bohm and Hiley to modify it. This modified version underlines that, due to features such as context-dependence and non-locality, Bohmian particles have a very limited autonomy in situations where quantum effects are non-negligible. So while BT restores the possibility of quantum individuals, it also underlines the primacy of the whole over the autonomy of the parts. The later sections of the paper also examine the Bohm theory in the general mathematical context of symplectic geometry. This provides yet another way of understanding the subtle, holistic and dynamic nature of Bohmian individuals. We finally briefly consider Bohm's other main line of research, the "implicate order", which is in some ways similar to LR's structural realism.
Emergent quantum mechanics (EmQM) explores the possibility of an ontology for quantum mechanics. The resurgence of interest in realist approaches to quantum mechanics challenges the standard textbook view, which represents an operationalist approach. The possibility of an ontological, i.e., realist, quantum mechanics was first introduced with the original de Broglie-Bohm theory, which has also been developed in another context as Bohmian mechanics. This Editorial introduces a Special Issue featuring contributions which were invited as part of the David Bohm Centennial symposium of the EmQM conference series (www.emqm17.org). Questions directing the EmQM research agenda are: Is reality intrinsically random or fundamentally interconnected? Is the universe local or nonlocal? Might a radically new conception of reality include a form of quantum causality or quantum ontology? What is the role of the experimenter agent in ontological quantum mechanics? The Special Issue also includes research examining ontological propositions that are not based on the Bohm-type nonlocality. These include, for example, local, yet time-symmetric, ontologies, such as quantum models based upon retrocausality. This Editorial provides topical overviews of thirty-one contributions which are organized into seven categories to provide orientation.