The Re-Enchantment of Humanity

The mixture of quantum and classical is neither deterministic -- after Newton and Einstein -- nor quantum random -- after Schrodinger and von Neuman. The world is new. But what does this mean for the social and natural sciences? On December 2, 2011, the Vermont Complex Systems Center at the University of Vermont invited Dr. Stuart Kauffman (along with Professors Christopher J. Koliba and Brian Beckage) to discuss this far-reaching topic as part of the Complex Systems Spire Speaker Series. For more information, go to: www.uvm.edu/complexsystems

STUART KAUFFMAN Dr. Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well as for applying models of Boolean networks to simplified genetic circuits.

Neurobiologists believe the mind brain system is and must be classical physics. For many, at some complexity, consciousness arises. This could be correct but faces what I will call the Stalemate: Such a mind can at most witness the world but, due to the causal closure of classical physics, cannot act upon that world. Such a consciousness must be merely epiphenomenal.

Quantum biology is exploding, showing that quantum effects can and do arise at body temperature. Quantum mechanics allows a partially quantum mind to have ACAUSAL consequences for the “meat” of the brain, thus solving the Stalemate and answering the problem posed by Descartes’ Res cogitans and Res extensa: i.e. the Stalemate. Our human capacity to choose, in turn, demands that the present could have been different, thus the truth of counterfactual claims. If quantum measurement is indeterministic and real, quantum mechanics and measurement allow the present to be different.

I shall discuss these issues and the newly discovered Poised Realm, hovering reversibly between quantum and “classical” behaviors, as a new basis both for the mind body system and a new class of constructable and evolvable “computers” which are not algorithmic, Trans Turing.

Mind, Body, Quantum Mechanics

S.Kauffman

I discuss the following: The causal closure of classical physics implies that consciousness in a classical physics brain can at best be epiphenomenal. Quantum mechanics can break the causal closure of classical physics in two ways: measurement and a newly discovered Poised Realm. Conscious experience may be associated with quantum measurement. Here quantum mind has acausal consequences for the classical brain. I propose genetic experiments to test this. Entanglement may solve the “binding problem.” I believe these proposals unite mind and body in a new way and answer Descartes after 350 years of the Stalemate introduced by his dualism of Res cogitans and Res extensa.

Mind, Body, Quantum Mechanics

S.Kauffman

Minds And Machines: The Limits Of Turing-Complete Machines

S.Kauffman

...Given sense data, a sense data statement is "for Kauffman, 'red here' is true." McCulloch and Pitts borrowed sense data statements, and implicitly identified the truth of falseness of a set of N sense data statements for the N formal neurons in the first, input rank, of their neural network. Then the network could compute any logical function on those inputs. They titled their paper, "A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity." With this was born artificial intelligence and neural networks. And with this was born the unsupported assumption that one could identify with the on/off state of each formal neuron the truth or falseness some "experienced" sense data statement.

Clearly, there is no justification for this identification...

...In contrast, we believe, with our colleague Gabor Vattay, that an entire "poised realm" exists for open quantum systems in an environment, hovering back and forth between quantum coherence decohereing to classicality FAPP, then recohering to quantum coherence. More specifically, consider an X,Y Cartesian coordinate system. Let the Y axis represent decoherence from quantum coherence to classicality FAPP "up" the Y axis from the origin, and recoherence "down" the Y axis. Let the X axis represent "order," "criticality" and "chaos," for example as tuned for classical systems by their Hamiltonians. This coordinate system represents the "poised realm." Within this realm, Niiranen, Vattay and Kauffman have invented "trans-Turing systems" with a filed United States utility patent, and well described in "Answering Descartes: beyond Turing" by Kauffman (2012). Without going into the details, trans-Turing systems are partially non-determinate due to their quantum aspects, yet non-random due to their classical aspects. Thus, as non-determinate systems, they are not algorithmic. They are an entirely new class of information processing systems, with quantum coherent, poised realm, and classical inputs and outputs in one or among a set of trans-Turing systems. Indeed, the very concept of information requires modification as information as normally defined applies only to classical physics systems over finite discrete alphabets.

There are beginning grounds to believe that such systems can solve the frame problem. Strangely the evidence lies in evolutionary biology where, again quantum and classical aspects mix: mutations are quantum random and indeterminate, yet evolution is not random as seen in the convergent evolution of the octopus and mammalian camera eye. Neither quantum mechanics alone, nor classical physics alone is sufficient for evolution. We believe the same is true for trans-Turing systems. We believe in general trans-Turing systems will be able to solve the frame problem non-propositionally...

Some more on trans-Turing systems in this post...