QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

mind, categories such as mental events, states and processes have replaced modifications of the
soul. 822
Traditionally, physicists investigating the dimensional world of inorganic matter have not really
participated in investigations of the phenomena of consciousness, but the advent of quantum
mechanics has changed the situation. Many physicists have begun to become involved in
questions concerning consciousness. In basic philosophical or cognitive-science texts dealing
with phenomena of the mind or consciousness, references to quantum theory are few and far
between. Even in those works that defend Materialism, it is unusual for there to be even a few
words concerning the nature of matter. 823 The dominant research tradition appears to take the
concept of reality legitimised by classical physics as a given: manifestations of consciousness are
investigated at the macroscopic level within a mechanistic-deterministic framework. 824
Part of the problem of understanding the way in which the brain operates is certainly connected
with macroscopic phenomena, but in principle, the possibilities offered by the quantum frame of
reference can also be considered to be a better starting point than those of classical physics when
we are attempting to address our internal dynamics. Since the classical physics method of
approach is not even adequate for explaining the behaviour of atomic particles, we can make the
defensible assumption that profiling difficult-to-address phenomena of the mind also requires a
more-developed physics. The existence of the state-function and fields mean that modern physics
is no longer restricted by Atomistic ways of thinking adopted at the beginning of the modern era.
All physical events observed in nature do not need to be reduced to observable and directly
measurable quantities and material entities. The shaping of reality can also be influenced by
structures or causes that are not directly manifested in space-time.
Currently, the principal trends in neuro- and cognitive science being debated by philosophers
appear to be Reductive materialism, in which the mind is identified with specific brain states, or
Eliminative materialism, in which the concept of the mind as viewed by common psychology is
completely eliminated. If the existence of independent mental phenomena is accepted, one can
choose Parallelism, side-by-side spiritual and neural activity, or Interactionism, in which some
821 Pylkkänen, 1992, 43.
822 Steward 1997, 1-2.
823 Squires 1990, 3-4.
824 This choice is sometimes defended by saying that the human brain and nerves are macroscopic objects or that
quantum indeterminism would cause further complications in understanding psychophysical causation. These
arguments are not valid outside a mechanistic-deterministic framework.
318