Brain Josephson, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics and Director of the Mind-Matter Unification Project at the University of Cambridge has just published his thoughts on that relationship. They are copied below:
String Theory, Universal Mind, and the Paranormal *
Brian D. Josephson
Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Rd, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10ABSTRACT
A model consistent with string theory is proposed for so-called paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception (ESP). Our mathematical skills are assumed to derive from a special ‘mental vacuum state’, whose origin is explained on the basis of anthropic and biological arguments, taking into the need for the informational processes associated with such a state to be of a life-supporting character. ESP is then explained in terms of shared ‘thought bubbles’ generated by the participants out of the mental vacuum state. The paper concludes with a critique of arguments sometimes made claiming to ‘rule out’ the possible existence of paranormal phenomena.
Keywords: ESP, string theory, anthropic principle, thought bubble, universal mind, mental state
* To appear in the Proceedings of the 2nd. European Samueli Symposium, Freiburg, October 2003
1. Introduction
Critics of claims of the paranormal, e.g. Deutsch (2001), have declared extrasensory perception (ESP) or other paranormal phenomena to be ‘nonsense’ . Such absolutist positions give little weight to the experimental evidence (Radin 1997) in support of the reality of such processes, and seem naive given the range of imaginative proposals concerning the nature of reality currently being put forward for serious consideration by conventional physicists. One important advance has been the superseding of the so-called Standard Model as a fundamental theory of nature by string theory (http://superstringtheory.com), where the Standard Model features merely as a subset of the set of permitted possibilities. As Carr (2001, 2003) (whose approach is centred on the alternative Randall-Sundrum picture) has suggested, such a change in perspective opens up new possibilities in science, including the possibility of accommodating paranormal phenomena within physics. In the following a number of concepts are combined, each in essence consistent with accepted ideas, resulting in a qualitative explanation for ESP, with the promise of an eventual clear cut basis for understanding paranormal phenomena in general.
2. A separate mental reality
A key assumption we make is one which, while it has no clear connections with experimental physics, does make contact with a position that was advocated by mathematicians such as Gödel (Davis and Hersh 1981, Penrose 1994). This is the idea that some aspects of mentality involve a realm of reality largely, but not completely, disconnected from the phenomena manifested in conventional physics. The idea of a disconnected realm does have precedents, for example in the way two of the fundamental forces (the strong and weak forces) play no role in large areas of physics and chemistry, whilst in other contexts they have a very important part to play. Next note that string theory, involving as it does spaces having more dimensions than the usual three, and also a non-unique vacuum state (and according to Susskind (2003a, b), a very large number of such states), is consistent with there being such a ‘separate realm’, in a way that the Standard Model, with its unique vacuum state contained within a limited number of spatial dimensions, did not.
The point in regard to mathematical thinking, which motivates our model, is the following. Consider first of all what the brain does in visual perception. Here the primary information from the visual receptors goes through various levels of processing until it ends up as a high-level representation of the content of the visual field. It is not unreasonable to identify mathematics as a similar process, except that higher levels of abstraction are involved in this case. With the visual case, the mechanics are straightforward: the visual field typically contains for example edges, for which abstraction a dedicated neural system has evolved, related to our ability to perceive edges. It is hard to see why we should have such ready access to higher mathematical abstractions having little connection with experience (Penrose 1994). One resolution of the problem would be for mathematical concepts to be in some way ‘in the physics’, rather than being emergent properties of brains. In case it is felt that such a drastic solution is not necessary to explain our ready access to mathematical ideas, and that neural networks can provide an adequate explanation, a stronger argument for the existence of some kind of Platonic realm can be made on the basis of the aesthetic aspect of music (Josephson and Carpenter 1996).
So far, in shifting the locus of mathematical thinking (and music?) to another realm, we have only replaced one mystery by another. But why should such a realm exist at all? The explanation we provide is of a biological character, taking account of the fact that information processing is an essential component of biological functioning, but with only very specific informational processes having a life-supportive character. While it is commonly taken that the informational processes involved are mediated by ordinary physical means, it is not a logical necessity that this should be the case. Some informational processes in an organism are specialised to the nature and circumstances of the organism concerned, but some have a more abstract and universal character, and so could be mediated by a quite different system with which individual organisms would interact.
Next we observe that a form of proto-life, defined as fluctuation patterns surviving longer than typical patterns do, can be hypothesised as occurring at the Planck scale, evolution of such life being expected to involve evolution of the accompanying informational systems also. We get to the proposed model by supposing that the ordinary physical component and the informational component can evolve separately. and that the informational component can even survive the creation and destruction of individual universes, remaining as an ever-present background with which new universes, Planck scale fluctuations and more developed life forms can all beneficially interact. Assuming an indefinitely extended time scale, the most persistent part of the informational background can evolve indefinitely, so that its dynamics might come to include features corresponding to mathematical concepts and operations as well.
This idea can be fruitfully connected with anthropic ideas, particularly taking the point of view of Susskind (2003a, b), who explains the way our universe seems to be mysteriously fine tuned to develop in such a way that life is possible in terms of it being only one of a vast number of coexisting universes, a small proportion of which have such a property, one of which we find ourselves occupying. Our speculations can be seen as the application of a similar idea to the informational aspect of life.
While Susskind treats life as a passive occupant of whatever universe can permit it to develop, our proposals see life in a more general light, able to shape its environment in a partnership with it, in a manner analogous to the proposals of Lovelock (1995) (the Gaia hypothesis, for which there is now considerable supportive evidence), to the effect that life may be able to interact cooperatively with its environment, discovering how to operate upon it to its best advantage.
