Note on Consciousness and Science

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Boole was the first to systemise the Laws of Thought as a discipline, by

applying algebraic methods to the processes of Thought. Boole may be

considered the father of the mathematics of the mind. In the latter half

of the 19th century Mathematical Logic came into its own by the works of

Peano, Frege, Pierce and Russell. The first three-quarters of the 20th

century was the Golden Age of Mathematical Logic. It was then that

Mathematicians intensely worked on the Grammar of Formal Language: Tarski

on the Semantics of Formal Languages, Godel on the equivalence of Syntax

and Semantics and also on the famous Incompleteness Theorem and Turing on

the Theory of computation. There was success everywhere but the price paid

for this success was that it all worked only for reasoning in mathematics.

There was great difficulty in applying it elsewhere. Attempts to apply

it to the programming of computers to think, produced the subject of

Artificial Intelligence (AI). Attempts to use logic to analyze everyday

language produced the subject of Mathematical Linguistics. Attempts to

mimick the steps through which brain responds to externally generated

stimuli and sends impulses to the rest of the body, resulted, with the

help of engineers, in the subject of Robotics. Applications multiplied:

Chess playing, Control systems, Systems management, etc. This is where

we are now.

It is in the wake of all this that we have arrived at the modern

thought that Mind is a computer and we think we are on the way to

understanding the deeper workings of the mind. This, compounded with the

wisdom generated by the Quantum Revolution of the thirties, has motivated

us to the study of Consciousness that seems to be at the basis of

everything claimed by the mind as its own. But even here, it has taken

us almost half a century to come to grips with the real necessity of the

study. As early as the forties two mathematicians von Neumann, and

Norbert Weiner and one Biologist J.B.S. Haldane, pointed out that Quantum

Mechanical aspects of nature seemed tailor made for bringing Consciousness

back into Science - a position which it had lost after the advent of the

Newtonian era. For almost three centuries, the emphasis continued to be

on the pursuit of the understanding of the material universe. It is only

since the eighties of the 20th century we have taken the suggestion and

started on the quest of scientific understanding of Consciousness.

All digital computers operate according to algorithms. But man is not just

an algorithmic creature. He knows plenty of things which are not

algorithmic. Mathematics itself is beyond just an algorithmic exercise.

Godel demonstrated that in any formal system there will be propositions

which are true but cannot be demonstrated formally from the axioms of the

system. In Penrose’s charter for the study of Consciousness he refers to

the non-computational capabilities of the brain and so declares that

modern computers and AI cannot answer the needs. He seems to arrives at

this via an application of the Godel methodology of thinking. But his use

of Godel has been seriously questioned by Mathematicians. His resort to

‘microtubules’ (certain proteins found in all cells, that have useful

properties for computation with individual neurons) as the possible

structures or loci for non-computational activity of the brain is not

accepted by the biologists. According to them microtubules can be

disrupted by chemical agents without affecting the neural activity. All

our evidence regarding consciousness depends upon reports of personal

experiences and observation of our own perception, memories, imagery etc.

So it appears to lean more towards the psychobiological field.

Understanding Consciousness scientifically seems to demand a good

knowledge, not superficial knowledge, of several disciplines -

mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, philosophy and neurology. The

problem of the biologists however, is : How can neural activities in

different locations in the brain be components of a single psychological

entity?

Quantum Mechanics (QM) is the crown jewel of 20th century achievements

of Science. Penrose thinks that QM will give the solution to the

definition of Consciousness if physicists widen their axiom-base and

develop new insights into the nature of the physical world. His evidence

for the non-classical nature of consciousness has to do with a time delay

of one and a half seconds between external stimulus and consciously

controlled response. But these, the neuroscientists say, can be explained

by clever non-quantum classical physiology and according to them, the

difference between such explanations and Penrose’s is not significant.

Penrose’s argument for QM, however, is more of a meta-argument. Classical

Mechanics considers everything as a simple aggregate of local entities.

The whole is just the sum of its parts. You put together all parts of an

engine and there is the engine! The same with the computer. But the brain

(mind?) is not just the aggregate of its cells. It seems to have an extra

quality of ‘beingness’ as a whole. QM provides the framework for this

two-level conception of the intertwined aspects of brain-mind.

On the other hand QM shows extraordinary observer paradoxes. The moment

something is observed (at the micro-cosmic level) that something is not

the same thing any more. To those of us who find it difficult to digest

this I usually give the following example: I have a cookie-tin at home

with good solid brittle cookies in it. But the tin is so tightly closed

that every morning I open it with effort, I disturb the contents of the

tin and I never get a whole unbroken cookie. Every morning I take the

broken cookies and hope for the best the next day. But the next day

history repeats itself! Something like this happens in QM observation.

Observation disturbs the object observed. The principal conceptual

difficulty therefore is that Reality, if it exists in a unique and

determined state, is only with reference to the observer and his

instruments. When it applies to external objects it applies after they

have been observed. This is where the observer paradoxes come in the

picture. Thus Schrodinger’s cat is both alive and dead at the same time,

until the box is opened and the cat is observed. So who is the observer?

Does the cat count as one? Why not? The Wave function of QM is the sum of

all possible states or histories of the system. Observation collapses the

wave function and brings out one actual unique state. But the transition

from the possibilities to observation is not predictable. Any one of the

possibilities may become actual.

In spite of all this, the metaphysics of QM, with its insight into the

role of the observer, is very relevant to the scientific studies of the

subjective aspects of the mind. There is an ‘observer’ of subjective

awareness as all of us can experience. There is an observer of QM which is

known by Modern Physics. How do we associate the two? is the

million-dollar question. Is this association in the field of Science? This

is what Henry P. Stapp (Berkeley) and Roger Penrose (Oxford) feel. Or is

it in the realm of metaphysics? This is what Stanley A. Klein (Berkeley)

feels. The abstract conception is always possible if it is logically

consistent. Non-euclidean geometries can be conceived though they cannot

be imagined or visualized. Any synthetic proposition can be denied without

contradiction. The opposite of any such proposition is conceivable. The

fourth Cartesian axis that meets at 90 degrees with all of the other three

can be conceived but not imagined. Thus the four dimensional analogue of a

cube can be conceived. Mathematicians daily play with such conceptions far

more complicated than any of these. But even the conception that there is

a probably infinite dimensional reality that is Absolute Reality, of

which, each of us, including the Great Masters, sees only a projection in

one or two of our axes, is very difficult, even as a conception - not to

speak of imagination or visualization! But this is exactly what the

scriptures seem to say. How can the cognizer be cognized? -- says the

Upanishad.

Pranams to all advaitins.

Profvk

 

 

 

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Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

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