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Krasnow Institute > Monday Seminars > Abstracts THE TIMING OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE: A CAUSALITY-VIOLATING, TWO-VALUED, TRANSACTIONAL INTERPRETATION OF SUBJECTIVE ANTEDATING AND SPATIAL-TEMPORAL PROJECTION Quantum systems in the time interval between two events, so-called two-time observables (TTO), are known to behave in a manner quite differently from expectations based on initial value quantum mechanics. According to the transactional interpretation (TI) of quantum physics wave functions can be pictured as offer and echo waves-the offer wave passing from an initial event, (i), to a future event, (a), and the echo wave, the complex conjugate of the offer wave, passing from (a) back in time toward (i). TTO and the TI have been used to explain certain quantum physical temporal anomalies, such as non-locality, contrafactuality, and future-to-present causation as explicitly shown in Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. Experimental evidence involving neurological functioning and subjective awareness indicates the presence of the same anomalies. Here I propose a model based on TTO and the TI wherein two neural events are ultimately responsible for backwards-through-time wave function collapse in the intervening spacetime interval. After providing a simple argument showing how quantum physics applies to neurological functioning and a simple demonstration of how the TI and TTO explain the delayed choice paradox, I propose that such pairs of causality-violating events must occur in the brain in order that a single experience in consciousness take place in the observer accompanied by a single change in the observed quantum system. Using this proposition I offer a quantum physical resolution-similar to that of the delayed choice experiment-of the "delay-and-antedating" hypothesis/paradox put forward by Libet et al to explain certain temporal anomalies associated with a delay time, D, required for passive perception experienced by experimental subjects including the blocking of sensory awareness normally experienced at time t by a cortical signal at later time t+fD (0<f<1) and the reversal in time of the sensory awareness of the events corresponding to cortical and peripheral stimuli. The model may be a first step towards the development of a quantum physical theory of subjective awareness and suggests that biological systems evolved and continue to function in accordance with TTO and consequently a causality-violating, two-valued, TI of quantum mechanics. The model successfully predicts and explains Libet's temporal anomalies and makes a new prediction about the timings of passive bodily sensory experiences and imagined or phantom sensory experiences. The predictions of the model are compared with experimental data indicating agreement.
To get a copy of the paper upon which this presentation is based, check
the following URL on the web: Suggested references relating to Fred Alan Wolf's presentation: 1. Penrose, R. (1994) Shadows of the Mind, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 387. 2. Cramer, J. G. (1986) Transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics Reviews of Modern Physics 58, 647. See also, Cramer, J. G. (1983) Generalized absorber theory and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, Physical Review D 22, 166. 3. Aharonov, Y. and. Vaidman, L. (1990) Properties of a quantum system during the time interval between two measurements, Physical Review A 41, 11. See also, Aharonov, Y., Albert, D., Casher, A., and Vaidman, L. (1987)
Phys. Lett. A. 124, 199. Aharonov, Y., Albert, D., and Vaidman, L. (1988) Phys. Rev. Lett. 60,
1351. 4. Honderich, T. (1984) The Time of a Conscious Sensory Experience and Mind-Brain Theories, J. theor. Biol. 110, 115-119,. 5. Libet, B., Wright, E.W., Feinstein, B., & Pearl, D.K. (1979) Subjective Referral of the Timing for a Conscious Sensory Experience, Brain 102, 193. 6. Libet, B. (1985) Subjective Antedating of a Sensory Experience and Mind-Brain Theories: Reply to Honderich (1984), J. Theor. Biol. 114, 563-570. 7. Snyder, D. M. (1988) Letter to the editor: On the Time of a Conscious Peripheral Sensation, J. Theor. Biol. 130, 253-254. 8. Wolf, F. A (1989) On the quantum physical theory of subjective antedating, J. Theor. Biol. 136, 13-19. 9. Penrose, R. (1997) The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 135-137. 10. Hameroff, S. R., Kaszniak, A. W., and Scott, A. C. eds. (1996) Toward a Scientific Basis for Consciousness, The MIT Press, Boston, MA. 11. Eccles, F. R. S., J. C. (1986) Do mental events cause neural events analogously to the probability fields of quantum mechanics?, Proc. R. Soc. B 227, 411-428. 12. Wolf, F. A. (1986) The Quantum Physics of Consciousness: Towards a New Psychology, Integrative Psychiatry 3, 236-247. 13. Roland, P. E., Larsen, B., Lassen, N. A., & Skinhøj (1980) Supplemental motor area and other cortical areas in organizations of voluntary movements in man, J. Neurophysiology 43, 118-136. 14. Hellmuth, T., Zajonc, A. C., and Walther, H. (1986) Realizations of Delayed Choice Experiments, New Techniques and Ideas in Quantum Measurement Theory, ed. D. M. Greenberger, Vol. 480, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Also see Wheeler, J. A. (1978) The "past" and the "delayed-choice" double-slit experiment in Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory, ed. A. R. Marlow, New York: Academic press, pp. 9-48. 15. Wolf, F.A.(1984) Star Wave, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Publications by Fred Alan Wolf
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