Dear Owen,

 

[First two paragraphs from Owen’s previous letter]

 

You're quite right that within the current framework of the scientific worldview, there is no explanation for how non-physical properties could be causally efficacious. But nor is there any cogent explanation for now the brain generates or even influences subjective experiences, which have no identifiable physical qualities. From my perspective, no progress has been made in solving the hard problem, and that's because it's based on false assumptions left over from the absolute dualism of Descartes. If we switch from a mechanistic orientation toward causality to a purely phenomenological one, the problem can be seen in an entirely new light.

 

You're also right that I have said that the burden of proof is on the physicalist. My reasons, in short, are that from a first-person perspective of a contemplative, mental phenomena do not appear to have physical characteristics; and from the third-person perspective of a scientist, mental phenomena are undetectable (unless you simply decree that they are identical to their correlated brain processes...but this is hardly constitutes empirical evidence or even a rational argument).

 

You're also right that a physicalist can at least explain how mental causation is possible in ways that sound plausible to other physicalists. But such accounts appear to be quite "incredible" from a contemplative perspective. Scientists have no consensus regarding the definition of consciousness, they can't measure it, they haven't found its neural correlate, and they have yet to discover its necessary and sufficient causes. Yet they insist that it is "physical," without having any consensus about what that term means. To a Buddhist contemplative, scientific accounts for mental causation sound about as feasible as the story of rubbing a lamp (consisting of complex configurations of neuronal activity) and having a genie (consciousness) pop out.

 

You're also right that contemplatives have no non-physicalist (whatever that means) account of causal efficacy that is credible for physicalists. For physicalists, energy is something that is conserved in the objective world, independent of measurement, but no one knows what that conserved stuff is. In the intersubjective world of the Buddhist contemplative, space (dharmadhatua), energy (jnana-prana), and consciousness (jnana) are ultimately of the same nature, co-extensive in a world that transcends the human conceptual constructs of subject and object, mind and matter. Within this framework, there is an account of causal efficacy that is perfectly credible to contemplatives. In short, "credibility" and "plausibility" are in the eyes of the beholder. The laws of physics have been revealed only through the precise observation of and experimentation with physical phenomena, and the laws of biology have been revealed only through the precise observation of and experimentation with biological phenomena. Likewise, the laws of consciousness are revealed only through the precise observation of and experimentation with mental phenomena. But scientists have yet to develop a "telescope for the mind," so they have never developed a science of consciousness comparable to their physical and life sciences.

 

The mind-body problem won't be solved by neuroscientists, whose empirical research is confined to the hermetically sealed box of the brain. Nor will it be solved by philosophers, who lack their own sophisticated methods of empirical research. If it's solved in ways that are satisfying from both first-person and third-person perspectives, this will occur through a close collaboration between scientists, philosophers, and contemplatives. And for that to happen, it is imperative that contemplative research facilities be established where the first-person investigation of the full bandwidth of states of consciousness can be explored in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural ways.

 

A separate point about recent attempts to explain consciousness via exotic

physics.  Stuart Hameroff and his colleagues at Arizona along with Roger

Penrose in the UK suggest that "quantum gravitational effects" in the

microtubules of neurons might be the mechanism.

 

I believe that theory has already been well put to rest.

 

Two points: First, we don't know if there is quantum gravity. If there is it is approx. 40 orders of

magnitude weaker than ordinary gravity!

 

Agreed!

 

I still prefer global oscillations in the 40Hz gamma range as part of how it happens (see W. Singer & Marburg; Lutz

et al.).

 

There may or may not be a close correlation between consciousness and the 40Hz gamma range. I've heard that Crick has already distanced himself from his own speculations on this subject. But even if or when the neural correlates of consciousness are identified, that will not constitute compelling evidence that those neural correlates are equivalent to consciousness or even that they are the neural correlates to all forms of consciousness.

 

Second,  quantum physical explanations of consciousness are just not

a very plausible route to go -- quantum effects cancel out at our body

temperature.  Find a part of brains at absolute zero and I'll reconsider.

 

This is indeed the received wisdom, but that's not the whole story. The emission of individual photos during the radioactive decay of uranium produces the macro-effect of the click of a Geiger Counter. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, at the quantum level there are no one-on-one causes for such emissions, but what that means is that no physical causes have been identified. But that doesn't rule out the possibility of non-physical causes. I am not suggesting that neural events are produced by the spontaneous emission of photons, but the above analogy does show that the issue of causality with respect to quantum theory is not as straightforward as is commonly believe.