Does the quantum theory make room for the causal powers of consciousness?

Paavo Pylkkanen Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skovde, Sweden and Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland. e-mail: paavo.pylkkanen@his.se Does consciousness have causal powers? More specifically, does it make a difference to the effects of information processing, whether or not the system is conscious of that information? There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that astonishingly much of our most sophisticated brain functions work totally independent from consciousness (see e.g. Walla ed. 2012). These results call into question the assumption that the conscious self plays a crucial causal role in complex human cognitive and emotion-related information processing, and in the way this information guides behavior. Indeed, since Libets 1985 work on the neuroscience of free will, the notion that the conscious will is not the original determinant of action has won increasing support among neuroscientists Wegner being a prominent contemporary example. Yet there are those who hold that consciousness has a genuine and indispensable causal role to play. For example, as pointed out by Robert Van Gulick in his useful review, it has been suggested that consciousness provides an organism with more flexible control, better social coordination, more integrated representations, better informational access, genuine freedom of will and intrinsic motivation. I will consider these suggestions, drawing attention to especially how the putative causal role of consciousness connects with information. With this link between consciousness and information in mind, I will then consider Bohm and Hileys notion of active information that is extended all the way to fundamental physics at the quantum level. In this broader context I will finally consider how we might understand the role that consciousness seems to play in information processing. Quite often philosophers appeal to the causal closure of the physical domain as a reason why mental properties cannot possibly influence physical processes. However, if information plays a key causal role at the quantum level, and if we can develop a plausible and coherent view of how consciousness might influence that information, the way is open to understanding how consciousness could influence physical processes in the brain in a very fundamental and subtle way. Keywords: function of consciousness; mental causation; epiphenomenalism; active information; Bohm; Hiley References Bohm, D. and Hiley, B.J. The Undivided Universe. An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory. Routledge: London,1993. Hiley, B.J. and Pylkkanen, P. Can mind affect matter via active information? Mind and Matter 2005, 3, 2, 7-26. URL = <http://www.mindmatter.de/resources/pdf/hileywww.pdf> Pylkkanen, P. Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order. Springer Frontiers Collection: Heidelberg and New York, 2007.

Walla, P. (ed.) 2012 The Brain Knows More than It Admits: The Control of Cognition and Emotion by Non-Conscious Processes. A special issue of the journal Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). Van Gulick, R., Consciousness. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta Ed., URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ sum2011/entries/consciousness/>.