Humanity in a Creative Universe by Stuart A. Kauffman

Author:Stuart A. Kauffman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2015-12-30T23:00:00+00:00

Conclusions

The Poised Realm is a new state of matter that appears able, for the first time in 350 years, to surpass the stalemate due to the causal closure of classical physics in which there is nothing for mind to do, nor any way for mind to do it. The acausal consequences of the Poised Realm by reversible decoherence and recoherence, and measurement, if real and there are no deductive mechanisms for measurement, allow quantum and Poised Realm mind to have repeated acausal consequences for the “classical causal meat of the brain.” We have possibly answered Descartes! We can, in principle, hope for a mind that is not merely epiphenomenal, but can affect the world, so, at least ontologically, the tiger can use its conscious mind and will to better chase the gazelle.

We can hope to harness the Poised Realm to create nonalgorithmic trans-Turing systems that are not discrete state, discrete time subsets of classical physics, as is the Turing machine. Such a system is not, therefore, algorithmic. Life solves the “uses of the screwdriver problem,” and so do we. We do not do so algorithmically, for no propositional algorithm can list the uses of a screwdriver or find new uses. We do. We are not algorithmic, as Penrose (1989, 1994) pointed out on different grounds.

In the next chapter, I will discuss the hypothesis that the mind-brain system is a form of TTS with consciousness associated with measurement. In Chapter 12, I will propose, with respect to the quantum enigma, that consciousness is necessary and sufficient for quantum measurement and propose the Triad, Actuals, Possibles, and Mind I have hinted at earlier, with consciousness and will at quantum variable and our levels. I note as preamble that nothing in this present chapter’s third-person description yet tells us what consciousness is, nor what responsible free will may be. We have not yet glimpsed the subjective pole. We have only, at best, broken the stalemate. I discuss approaching the subjective pole in later chapters.

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