QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

degree of interactivity between spiritual and neural functions is assumed. Parallel function can
mean that everything has a spiritual component, that spiritual functions are by-products of
material functions, or that spiritual functions are identical to some neurological functions. None
of these views can however be made credible with the help of artificial intelligence or its
applications. Within Interactionism, the following proposals have been made: 1) that spiritual
functions cannot be fully described using neural networks, 2) that spiritual functions cannot be
fully described in a formal manner, and 3) that biological intelligence should be viewed as a
product of evolution, a ”system” which has a seamless connection to the organism it serves. 825
In a physical context, it is usual to think of phenomena of the mind as externally determined. In
recent years, the rapid development of cognitive neuroscience and brain research by measuring
brain activity and employing imaging systems has opened up new possibilities for the modelling
of internal reality. Magnetic-resonance images have provided an indication that the contents of
mind or consciousness cannot be directly reduced to the physiology of the brain. Human
attentiveness and our state of alertness has a powerful influence on brain activity and we are
clearly able to change our brain states via conscious mental exercise. Even though Materialists
can maintain that ”mental exercise” is just a brain process which in itself is nothing remarkable,
scientific-technical development may, little by little, demonstrate that the mechanistic concept of
human being is not a credible one. The universe that lies within us does not have to be any
simpler than the external cosmos, and does not have to be determined by laws that exist in that
cosmos. Fundamental understanding of conformity to laws within the mind would appear to
require the adoption of a multi-disciplinary approach. It is my belief that experimentation in the
fields of brain research, neurobiology, psychology and modern physics will all be required.
Fruitful interaction between these different methods of approach is unlikely without a profound
renewal of the underlying ontology.
Suitably-interpreted quantum theory can be viewed as offering a foundation for the investigation
of both mental and material phenomena. Bohr’s complementarity signifies a challenge to the
strict dualism of subject and object. Reality appears as a single complex whole which we can
divide and portray from different viewpoints. In the non-localised reality at quantum level,
different tendencies and dispositions can be something actual and real, even though they cannot
825 Jalonen 1990, 125-126. For example, behaviourism rejected any talk of autonomous mental states as
unscientific. Cognitive science has been more tolerant and in its multidiciplinary circles mental states and
phenomena are usually considered to be causal factors explaining behaviour even though they are fundamentally
believed to be identifiable with certain brain states or brain phenomena.
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