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This article is about deterministic models, what they are, why they are useful, and what their limitations are. First, the article emphasizes that determinism is a property of models, not of physical systems. Whether a model is deterministic or not depends on how one defines the inputs and behavior of the model. To define behavior, one has to define an observer. The article compares and contrasts two classes of ways to define an observer, one based on the notion of “state” and another that more flexibly defines the observables. The notion of “state” is shown to be problematic and lead to nondeterminism that is avoided when the observables are defined differently. The article examines determinism in models of the physical world. In what may surprise many readers, it shows that Newtonian physics admits nondeterminism and that quantum physics may be interpreted as a deterministic model. Moreover, it shows that both relativity and quantum physics undermine the notion of “state” and therefore require more flexible ways of defining observables. Finally, the article reviews results showing that sufficiently rich sets of deterministic models are incomplete. Specifically, nondeterminism is inescapable in any system of models rich enough to encompass Newton’s laws.
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Quantum Panprotopsychism and the Combination Problem
We argue that a phenomenological analysis of consciousness similar to that of Husserl shows that the effects of phenomenal qualities shape our perception of the world. It also shows the way the physical and mathematical sciences operate, allowing us to accurately describe the observed regularities in terms of communicable mathematical laws. The latter say nothing about the intrinsic features of things. They only refer to the observed regularities in their behaviors, providing rigorous descriptions of how the universe works, to which any viable ontology must conform. Classical mechanistic determinism limits everything that can occur to what happens in an instant and leaves no room for novelty or any intrinsic aspect that is not epiphenomenal. The situation changes with quantum probabilistic determinism if one takes seriously the ontology that arises from its axioms of objects, systems in certain states, and the events they produce in other objects. As Bertrand Russell pointed out almost a century ago, an ontology of events with an internal phenomenal aspect, now known as panprotopsychism, is better suited to explaining the phenomenal aspects of consciousness. The central observation of this paper is that many objections to panpsychism and panprotopsychism, which are usually called the combination problem, arise from implicit hypotheses based on classical physics about supervenience. These are inappropriate at the quantum level, where an exponential number of emergent properties and states arise. The analysis imposes conditions on the possible implementations of quantum cognition mechanisms in the brain.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2206557
- PAR ID:
- 10580240
- Publisher / Repository:
- Imprint Academic
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Mind and Matter
- Volume:
- 22
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1611-8812
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 51 to 94
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.53765/mm2024.51
