Consciousness and physics

Causality, Randomness, and Free Will, Richard Shoup, 2007 [slides-PDF]
Abstract: The experience of free will has often been regarded as a hallmark of consciousness, yet its meaning and very existence have been debated for millenia. In this talk, we explore the complex relationship between free will, determinism, causality (both forward and backward), and quantum randomness. The latter, a deep and central assumption in quantum theory, is associated with measurement interactions. From an analysis based on quantum entropy, it is proposed that quantum measurement is properly understood as a unitary three-way interaction, with no collapse, no fundamental randomness, and no barrier to backward influence. Experiments with quantum-random devices suggest that retro-causal effects are seen frequently in various forms, and can be shown to explain some anomalous phenomena such as clairvoyance and precognition. It is argued that all interactions are indeed unitary, reversible, and thus deterministic, but that large-number effects give a persistent illusion nearly equivalent to free will.
Presented at the Quantum Mind conference, Salzburg, Austria, July 2007

Consciousness, Physics, and Computer Science, Richard Shoup, 2007 [slides-PDF]
Abstract: Consciousness is a loosely-defined concept that has sometimes been useful, but more often a distraction, in one of science's most important endeavors: understanding how the brain works. In this paper, we argue that misunderstandings in quantum physics and in mathematics have led to several common incorrect conclusions and speculations about the nature of conscious phenomena. The so-called "hard" problems of "experience" and "qualia" are subsumed in the more central and better-defined question of Self – why there seems to be an identity, an individual who says "I", "me", "my experience", etc. From computer science and neurophysiology, we argue that the brain is a highly evolved mechanism that is self-referring in complex ways, and thus it develops persistent and self-consistent structures that use these concepts and words as shorthand for their own functioning. We further discuss how consciousness is not central to quantum measurement, and how quantum entanglement is not a necessary or appropriate component of consciousness itself, but is essential to understanding certain phenomena such as psi. We also show how Godel's incompleteness theorems have lead some to incorrectly conclude that humans can represent mathematical and other knowledge that machines cannot. Finally, we (the author's brain structures, actually) present several largely unappreciated consciousness-related physical phenomena that are genuinely interesting, that may require new physics to fully understand, and that thus deserve more attention and exploration.
Presented at the Society for Scientific Exploration conference, East Lansing, Michigan, May 2007