"What has been achieved here is, of course, just a working out in more detail of Wigner's idea that quantum theory, in the von Neumann form, allows for mind --- pure consciousness --- to interact with the 'physical' aspect of nature, as that aspect is represented in quantum theory. What permits this interaction is the fact that the physical aspect of nature, as it is represented in quantum theory, is informational in character, and hence links naturally to increments in knowledge. Because each increment in knowledge acts directly upon the quantum state, and reduces it to the informational structure compatible with the new knowledge, there is, right from the outset, an action of mind on the physical world. I have just worked out a possible scenario in more detail, and in particular have emphasized how the causal gap associated with the Heisenberg Choice allows mind to enter into the dynamics in a way that is quite in line with our intuition about the efficacy of our thoughts. It is therefore simply wrong to proclaim that the findings of science entail that our intuitions about the nature of our thoughts are necessarily illusory or false [referring to classical physicists]. Rather, it is completely in line with contemporary science to hold our thoughts to be causally efficacious, and reducible neither to the local deterministic Schroedinger process, nor to that process combined with stochastic Dirac choices on the part of nature." Page 17-18

"I have stressed just now the idea-like character of the physical state of the universe, within vN/W quantum theory [but NOT QUFD!]. This suggests that the theory may conform to the tenets of Idealism. This is partially true. The quantum state undergoes, when a fact becomes fixed in a local region, a sudden jump that extends over vast reaches of space. This gives the physical state the character of a representation of knowledge rather than a representation of substantive matter. When not jumping the state represents potentialities or probabilities for actual events to occur. Potentialities and probabilities are normally conceived to be idea-like qualities, not material realities." Page 17-18

"The physical repository of this information is the quantum state of the universe: the new information is recorded as a reduction of the quantum state of the universe to a new form......is a repository of evolving information that has the dispositional power to create more information." Page 18

"Personal responsibility is not reconciled with the quantum understanding of causation by making our thoughts free, in the sense of being completely unconstrained by anything at all. It is solved, rather, by making our thoughts part of the causal structure of the body/brain/mind system, but a part that is not under the complete dominion of myopic (i.e., microlocal) causation and random chance. Page 19

"If one adopts this pragmatic view [the von Neumann/Wigner Pragmatic theory of the mind/brain] then one need never consider the question of nonhuman minds: the theory then covers, by definition, the science that we human beings create to account for the structure of our human experiences."
[Only problem is, it leaves OUT non-human consciousness!]
"This pragmatic theory should provide satisfactory basis for a rational science of the human mind/brain......However, it cannot be expected to be exactly true, for it would entail the existence of collapse events associated with increments in human knowledge, but no analogous events associated with non-humans.......One cannot expect our species to play such a special role in nature."
[NO? Why not, and yet INCLUDE other "minds" as well? The theological perspective (inherent in QUFD) is missing.]
"So far there is no known empirical evidence for the existence of any reduction events not associated with human knowings. This impedes, naturally, the development of a science that encompasses such other events." Page 20

"...Hence a more general theory that could deal with the {evolution of consciousness} would presumably have to be based on something other than the "experiential increments in knowledge" that were the basis of the pragmatic version described above." Page 21

"Fundamentally, the theory described above is a theory of events......The effect of these interlocking processes is to inject into the dynamics a directional tendency, based on approximate self-replication, that acts against the chaotic diffusive tendency generated by the Schroedinger equation. Such a process could occur before the advent of our species, and of life itself, and could contribute to their emergence." Page 21

"the Identity theory of mind claims that each mental state is identical to some process in a brain. But combining this idea with the classical-physics conception of the physical universe leads to problems.......according to the precepts of classical physical theory the high-level causes are mere mathematical reorganizations of microscopic causes that are completely explainable micro-locally within classical physics theory......In the examples just described our experiences themselves are not the causes of the ignition or destruction: our experiences merely help us to identify the causes. In fact, the idea behind classical physical theory is that the local physical variables of the theory represent a collection of ontologically distinct physical realities each of whose ontological status is (1), intrinsically micro-local, (2), ontologically independent of our experiences, and (3), dynamically non-dependent upon experiences." Page 22

"Quantum theory is, in this respect, somewhat similar to the Identity theory of mind: both entangle mind and physical process already at the ontological level. But the idea of the classical Identity theory of the mind is to hang onto the classical conception of physical reality, and aver that a correct understanding of the true nature of a conscious thought would reveal it to be none other than a classically describable physical process that brings about what the thought intends, given the appropriate alignment of the relevant physical mechanisms." Page 22

"In a unitary and dynamic field of all nuclear forces and gravity, extending infinitely everywhere simultaneously, all probabilities/potentialities are possible, including any and all intemporalities (as long as gravity is zero). The only requirement is that of the "knowing" represented by an observer, within OR without OF the aggregate quantum-state, such observer to be of such a willful state of mind as to be able to actualize any and all intentions THEREBY, and through, the mere WILLING thereof. In the quantum physical mechanism OF that "willing", as such does importune itself upon the ground-state U (the Universal-state), there is thusly created a unitary conflation of all the past, present and future possibilities such as are relevant TO those so-willed intentions, as to cause those individual and particular potentialities OF the past/present/future TO "present" themselves IN THE PRESENT, as so ordered (self-ordered) BY that increment of "knowing" which has so created the ordering."

Getting back to Professor Stapp's paper, the rest of his "Conflation and Identity" section merely disputes further issues of classical mechanics, as to past, present and future effects, but remains solidly classical in the conceptualizations thereof. The dynamic aspects of a zero-gravity unitary-field QUFD postulate, where not only are quantum thoughts (i.e., "knowings") of intention "sent" TO the past/present/future, BUT ALSO are RECEIVED BACK as well, are definitely missing from his theorizations!

In Professor Stapp's last pages, he discusses "will" and some techniques of psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz (1999) relating to such.

"His success does not prove that 'will' is efficacious, but it does constitute prima facie evidence that it is. In fact, the belief that our thoughts can influence our actions is so basic to our entire idea of ourselves and our place in nature, and is so essential to our actual functioning in this world, that any suggestion that this idea is false would become plausible only under extremely coercive conditions, such as its incompatibility with basic physics. But no such coercion exists. Contemporary physical theory does allow our experiences, per se, to be truly efficacious and non-reducible: our experiences are elements of the causal structure that do necessary things that nothing else can do. Thus science, if pursued with sufficient care, demands no cloistering of disciplines, or interpretation as user illusions of the apparent causal effects of our conscious thoughts upon our physical actions. Page 23-24

Aum, Peace, Amen!
Jerome