Customer Reviews

The Physics Of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind And The Meaning Of Life

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book could change your way of thinking about two of the most important realms of your world: what's "out there" and what's "in here" - it changed mine. For a book with such an impact, you might wonder why I only offer a stingy 4-stars. My concern is that since powerful ideas, like powerful chemistry, often depend on context (or `medium'), they may only explode on me (on you) if our intellectual medium is currently primed with the right elements. Mine was. Hopefully my writing about the book will help you establish whether it will be a bang or a whimper for you.

Walker's book is not just another "Tao of Physics", not merely another anxious new age gathering of science about the skirts of wishful metaphysics. It combines some of the better points of both, though, to present two startling ideas. Walker's application of these two ideas is to weaving together the strange edges of `out there' reality, as described by modern quantum physics, with the quicksilver ghost in the machine, the `in there' of your consciousness. I've seen a few books that attempt this by basically claiming "it sure is spooky out there" and "its pretty strange in here" and using little more that wishful thinking to posit a link. Walker does more.

The two ideas that Walker's book startled me with can seem simple when stated - you may think you've already thought them. He builds a case for claiming that parts of the biochemistry of the brain are driven by processes, not at the level of chemistry, but at that of quantum physics. Along with this he proposes a mechanism for extending the magnitude of intra-brain communication between neurons to suggest a combinatorial explosion in the already dauntingly large number of possible connections and states in the brain. Around these two ideas he then considers what consciousness might be and hints at linkages between inner to outer.

This idea of looking biochemical processes at the quantum level took me by surprise. If, like me, you've explored layperson's introductions to the strange reality characterized by quantum physics, you probably thought of that realm as fundamentally separate from chemistry. After all, its quarks and tachyons and oddly behaving particles and forces and fields are orders of magnitude smaller than that of even an atom, and are rarely described in aggregate - just isolated particles doing odd things. How amazing, then to rise up a level and to look at neuro-chemical processes, mediated by single electrons, and consider the impact of quantum elements on those electrons and those processes. Walker does this quite effectively after an extensive introduction to and overview of the physics and the neuro-chemistry.

The second powerful idea, the operational details of which I'll leave to your reading, expands the already demonstrably huge potential of the human brain by many orders of magnitude. Consider the example of 50 people at a party, clustered in twos and threes. At any given time there could be at most 25 or 30 conversations. The opportunity for individuals (and good hosts) to move between groups expands the numbers of interpersonal contacts enough that it could develop into a `good party' over the course of the evening. Now what would happen if all 50 could speak to all the rest and hear what they were saying? The number of potential conversations explodes to a very large number. Of course the opportunity for chaos is tremendous - but if, somehow, properly coordinated, the prospect for powerful networking is all the greater. Walker proposes such a mechanism for the brain; a way in which each neuron can communicate not merely with the 5 or 20 or even 100 to which it is interconnected, but to any of the other billions.

The failings of the book are few, but worth mentioning. Walker appears to want to build his `story' from the outset, around a tale of a lost love (really!). This may be true, or merely a styling that seeks to tie very airy ideas to real folks. Certainly we wonder at such things more often than we do at the workings of neurons. So I kept reading those interspersed segments thinking they would satisfy some other element of the argument, but they never did. Unless you find them engaging you can skip them and stick to the main argument(s). Of course Walker may have just added these bits to give a breather from the heavier going of, especially, the physics. Roughly the first 60% of the book is a pretty serious look at this piece of the argument and it can be slow going at times. I'm a fairly brainy guy, but I have to admit that I would struggle now to recall and outline the details of this piece of the argument. Its important to move beyond mere "faith" in even a `scientific' claim that things are "spooky" in the world of quantum physics - but once you are convinced by the science you can move ahead with the revised knowledge that things are "demonstrably spooky."

The elements that Walker does not belabor gain force by mere suggestion. Important among these is the ultimately-developed notion that some of the counter-factual things that quantum physics states as reality, and their demonstrated association with an important role for observers, are bound through this proposed quantum element of brain chemistry and consciousness. From here we are free, I suppose, to tie-in our own favorite unexplained phenomena - Walker doesn't push it. Although he somewhat overmentions his credentials I don't think he is, actually, a practicing physicist. His back-cover vitae notes, instead, his leadership of a `cancer institute' and we can assume he is professionally interested in mind-body issues and healing. Good for him. This book may take you there or elsewhere - it led me to lots more reading about "consciousness" - but I'm sure it will move you, someway, into valuable explorations of both inner and outer. Enjoy.

I used to be a physicist, and I know. It's what they fear most. Most physicists are fearfully materialist, whether they admit it or not. They hold onto the material world for dear life, even as they're proving that, well, there is no material.

They figure, the world makes sense. It's out there. We're in here. We'll just measure a little better, write the equations better, and it will all make sense... But the one thing they've never been able to explain is, if all this stuff is just stuff, who's thinking about it and doing the physics? How can a universe of rocks hold a place for consciousness?

Evan Harris Walker goes where more and more physicists are going, but where most fear to tread. Living legends like Freeman Dyson have seen it. Legends long gone like Erwin Schrodinger have seen it. It's the fact that when you finish going down, down, down, splitting all the particles that can be split, writing equations for the ultimate reality, you come face to face with.... you.

There is no matter. There is no structure. All that you see, all that you touch, is pure consciousness. Consciousness condenses the "real" physical world from an unreachable realm of potentiality, in which many things are true at once.

Walker explains, how this is so, how it must be so, and how the most amazing discovery, non-locality, means that (as Schrodinger said) there is only ONE consciousness. Anywhere and everywhere. And you're it. So am I, and so is she. So are we all, and so is it all.

That's not formless mysticism or a bad acid trip. It's in the equations. It's true. It's realer than what we used to call reality. But, as Richard Feynman once said, physicists don't WANT to think about what quantum theory really means.

Well, Evan Harris Walker has.

Buy this book.

The subtitle of Walker's exploration is perhaps better than the title: The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life. Unlike some of the other postings here this reviewer cannot gush uncritically about The Physics of Consciousness. It begins awkwardly, it ambles and lurches along for some time, and when it does hit it's stride with science it careens between disciplines with intoxicated gusto, rather than surgical precision. But in the end it's worth the ride. It is an important book as it postulates a testable hypothesis about consciousness, free will and whatever uber-reality may (or may not) underlie ALL THAT IS. (It is a modern re-statement of Thales' theorem that "all is water" --in this case "all is consciousness/will.")

To get through this awkward tangle requires some patience and more than a little familiarity with quantum physics and neuroscience. A healthy prior exposure to cosmology, evolution, and epistomology is also useful. But with that background in place, Walker's thesis is nothing short of extraordinary to contemplate. The author's exploitation of a personal tragedy from his young adulthood weaves a personal thread into this tapestry. Some might complain about this intrusion, and it does complicate the development. But it also lends a deep (if idiosyncratic) humanity that this reader eventually found oddly satisfying.

Walker goes as far with the philosophy of reality as any Western scientific thinker has been willing to go. It's the most contemporary general proof for an ultimate consciousness, a Platonic "first cause," this reader has ever enjoyed. And it's good enough to merit serious attention. The Physics of Consciousness deserves a place alongside recent explorations such as The Moral Animal (R. Wright) and The Fifth Miracle (P. Davies) as serious contemplations for students of Big Ideas. Just be prepared to be patient with it. And brush up on your quantum mechanics.

Evan Harris Walker has written an entirely different book than you may have expected from reading the title. Certainly, the book discusses all of what is included in the title, but with a trifle more sophistication than I had expected. Readers who are not already familiar with thinking about Quantum Theory and philosophy of mind will probably find the book a rough ride. While Walker takes pains to explain the concepts, his are not certainly not the clearest available.

What is unnerving to me about this book is the lack of respect paid to the unwitting non-specialist reader. Walker argues for a specific interpretation of quantum theory, an interpretation from which the rest of his argument laregly hangs, but fails to duly note the capriciousness of his philosophical choices. The fact is that his interpretation is based on an intuition, one that he tries to force down the reader's throat via an emotional and tragic tale from his past. He uses the story, which is weaved throughout the narrative, to cultivate the appropriate emotional response from his reader so that his interpretations and philosophical presuppositions look inevitable. He is quite masterful actually, but the uninitiated reader will probably not be able to see through the rhetoric.

Walker's intuitions are certainly well argued for in this book and, if they match your own, you will probably find this book to be a powerful confirmation for what you already believed. However, please be aware that Walker's interpretations and opinions are not necessary conclusions from science and are not the only consistent approaches to interpretation. This book is, then, an exploration in the justification of a faith via various lines of evidence from science, philosophy and experience. Recommended to the experienced reader.

Here are a few big questions about reality. Is it material and objective? Or is subjective, somehow linked with the human mind and dependent upon it? Why are we here? What is our relationship to the reality that we perceive and what is our relationship to each other within that reality? What happens to our consciousness when we die? Is there an afterlife? Is that question linked to the nature of reality, whether it is objective or subjective? Did Descartes have it correct when he said "I think, therefore I am."? Or, was he reversed such that it is more correct to say "I am, therefore I think."? When the theoretical physicist mentions the term "observer", just what is meant by that term? What is consciousness and how does it fit into reality?

I will not tell you what I think the answers to those questions are. I do not think that would be appropriate in this context. I will only say that these questions, among many others about the nature of reality and human consciousness, are the topics addressed by Evan Walker Harris in his book "The Physics of Consciousness, The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life". Does Evan Walker propose good answers to the big questions? Hmmm... I will say this: "The Physics of Consciousness" will likely surprise you and inspire you to think, even if only to solidify your resolve against many of the ideas it presents.

In "The Physics of Consciousness", Evan Walker tells the story of a personal quest to answer some of the big questions. This quest appears to have started and been motivated by the loss of a loved one when he was young - the story of that loss is told in bits and pieces throughout the book. At first, the presence of these sections of the book evoked a strange uneasiness within me; but, later, I came to appreciate the author's need to include them. I also came to see these sections as a reminder that the questions that philosophy and science seek to answer are about people and their relationship to the universe about them and each other. These are questions that have implications to individual humans - humans with ALL of the attributes that go along with that.

In "The Physics of Consciousness", Evan Walker describes the history of the many ways that men have viewed reality. From primitive spiritualism in its many forms, to Newtonian physics. On, through general relativity, and into quantum theory. He discusses Bell's Theorem and its notion that one particle can instantaneously affect another particle at another (even, very distant) location. He further discusses the thoughts and findings of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen with regard to Bell's Theorem. This book is worth the effort even if read for only this history and related discussion.

Now, how does all of this physics and philosophy relate to the topic of human consciousness? It seems that a few years ago, although such writings existed well before then, writings about the concept of the "quantum mind" were becoming more and more numerous. This book, "The Physics of Consciousness" is the first significant text about the topic of the "quantum mind" that I have read. I believe this book is a good and balanced introduction to the topic and it has inspired me to think and seek out further reading materials. I found the technical descriptions of the concept of the "quantum mind" (electron tunneling in the brain) educating, interesting, and exciting. I also learned a great deal about the brain that I had not come across in other related texts. For instance, did you know there is melanin in the brain? Why is it there? Evan Walker presents a good idea about that. Evan Walker has obviously deeply considered and discussed arguments against his ideas. Throughout the book, I kept finding myself reading something and mentally thinking of some argument, only to find Evan Walker presenting a discussion of my very argument a paragraph or two later.

Do you want to read some interesting ideas about the big questions and the physics of the human brain and consciousness? If so, read "The Physics of Consciousness". Whether you agree with the ideas presented or not, it will stretch and permanently expand your mind.

In this insightful work, "The Physics of Consciousness" Evan Harris Walker concludes that "Consciousness is Reality." Many philosophers and scientist have suggested that consciousness can never be explained because of its subjective nature, but Walker disagrees.

Methodically quantifying the various processes involved in information exchange in the brain in terms of "bits", Walker is able to extrapolate approximations of the speed and capacities of the information being manipulated in neural activities.

With this information in hand, Walker proceeds to treat the mind/brain activities in Descartean fashion, maintaining that in order to fully understand the relationship between the part and the whole, a dualistic notion of mind and matter must be entertained. The dualities of wave vs. particle, and observer vs. observed in the strange quantum world of state vector collapse, give us a clue as to what transpires in the brain.

Walker contends that the 24 trillion synapses in the brain delineate the transition point beween mind and matter. Most have rejected quantum effects across the synapses because of the relatively large distances and energy it takes to make the leap, but these individuals have not taken into account several known facets of quantum physics such as the principles of tunneling, indistinguishability, and state vertor collapse.

Walker says that the mind itself consists of two parts--consciousness and "will". Consciousness does not have to be a part of a living entity, but is a factor in all quantum events in nature. The "will", which defines what we are, is the catalyst that collapses the wave function into one discrete, non-local event from a myriad of possibilities. According to the principles established by Bell's non-locality theorem, this state vector collapse travels out into the universe at large, and always maintains a link to our individual and collective minds. As a bonus, Walker has answered another mystery as deep as consciousness itself--the nature of time. Time is real and asymmetrical. It is the irreversibility of the state vector collapse that gives time its arrow.

This is without exception the most satisfying and believable description of the naure of consciousness I have read to date. This work is a bit difficult at times for the non-scientist, but in the end patients pays off. With great effort he has made the concepts of the principles of "indistinguishability" and "non-locality" understandable, and he has brought us to a definitive link between mind, time, and nature.

Even so, I found his distinctions between consciousness, thought, and "will" a bit confusing if not contradictory at times. But he has something very important to say about the nature of mind. And, as a result of his thorough understanding of quantum theory, he has come closer than previous scholars to finally nailing down the nature of consciousness.

Running parallel to his main thesis is a delightful reminiscence of his high school lover who died after graduation in the summer of 1952. Excerpts from his diary and rememberances of the lost love of days gone by, make Walker's work both a scholarly and endearing tale.

This review by David Kreiter Author of "Quantum Reality: A New Philosophical Perspective"

This is incredibly nice work of one of the most prominent philosophers of our time. Evan Harris Walker writes about the connection between such complex subjects as Consciousness, Meaning of Life, God and Quantum Physics but he does it in simple and understandable manner. This is truly a new religion of 21st Century - a religion of common sense. This is a religion for most of modern nonbelievers, who cannot accept God in traditional sense because of their rational scientific minds, but who constantly think about meaning of life. If we want to advance on our eternal journey of progress with the same speed as before then there is no other way than investigating the phenomenon of God from scientific point of view. Unless we understand the physics of what people for centuries meant by word God we just cannot proceed further.

The meaning of this book is difficult to overestimate. Evan Harris Walker using his powerful emotional attitude and strict scientific approach created an invaluable information source, which through the minds of the individual readers makes our Global Consciousness - Our Global Collective Mind think about these issues more effectively, analyze them and find long-awaited answers to such eternal questions as What is God?, How to Connect to God?, etc. A Must Read!

Walker has made an important contribution to our scientific understanding of reality. There is much evidence for consciousness being the fundamental reality. I want to rebut some of the negative comments by Tucker and reviewer 13, and provide some linguistic clarification.

Roy Frieden ("Physics from Fisher Information", Cambridge U. Press,1998) shows that all physical theory is statistically based, resulting from observation that contains noise or fluctuations. He derives the physical laws from the principle of minimum (Fisher) information transfer during the observation process. I have pointed out that the combination of predictability and uncertainty, required for (non-statistical) willed actions, is enabled (via minimum constraint) by the minimum Fisher information requirement. See my APS E-Print (aps1999aug02_001) for a detailed discussion.

However, observation is just a euphamism for consciousness. The observation of a physical phenomenon, or measurement of a physical variable, depends on both passive and active aspects of human consciousness. The passive aspect is an awareness and (Platonic) understanding of possible actions. The active aspect is the free will to take willed actions which achieve the observation or measurement.

The necessity of having a statistical basis for the physical laws and of interpreting dynamic behavior in the mathematical symbols of the description are, separately, strong evidence for consciousness being the fundamental reality. We perceive a dynamic, or temporarily-changing, world of 3 extended spatial dimensions. We do not perceive a space-time world of 4 extended dimensions. Roger Penrose ("Shadows of the Mind") has pointed out that the 4-dimensional space-time world of our mathematical descriptions can only be understood as dynamic because, through our conscious experience, we can associate a dynamic behavior with the mathematical symbols. The necessity of inserting that interpretation into the descriptions is strong evidence for consciousness being the fundamental reality.

A one-world view, with consciousness as the fundamental (shared) reality, implies that there is a Universal Mind or Consciousness whose manifestations include the objective world. That is what (in his 10/2/00 comments)creates Tucker's "quantum mechanical universe". See Walker's final chapter. A careful evaluation of this one-world view depends on considering the different classes of manifestations (thoughts)of individual (human) minds. This is done in my APS E-Print(aps1998jun09_001),entitled "Consciousness and Dynamic Reality".

Tucker also concludes (in his 8/21/00 comments) that Walker is rejecting "objectivity". This depends on what we mean by objective. Scientists (including me)have sometimes defined an objective description as one that is self-independent. This definition can be ambigious, particularly for those of who accept consciousness as a fundamental, shared reality. A dictionary definition of objective is being independent of mind. Since a self is an individual (human) mind, an objective description could be taken as one that is independent of consciousness - and thus does not correspond to reality. Most scientists, whether they accept consciousness as fundamental or not, think of an objective description as one that is not restricted to individual viewpoints, but has universal applicability. They would not reject objectivity, in that sense. In choosing to provide their own (clearly original) comments about the book, Tucker and reviewer 13 have provided support for one of the major conclusions of the book - the reality of free will.

May I be permitted an introductory excursion that is meant to clarify what is at stake in this book? In a letter to Thomas Wren Ward on Nov. 7, 1867, William James wrote: "It seems to me that perhaps the time has come for Psychology to begin to be a science." He would go on to write a foundational text in scientific psychology -- *The Principles of Psychology* (1890) -- but he was haunted by a sense that the effort was premature. On May 15, 1868, he wrote to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: "I have a (perhaps erroneous) suspicion that psychology is not *à l'ordre du jour* until some as yet unforeseen steps are made in the physiology of the Nervous system." Frustrated by the limitations of psychology, James turned more and more in later years to philosophy, since science seemed unable even to frame the questions in which he was most interested. In March 1869 he wrote to Ward: "I'm swamped in an empirical philosophy - I feel that we are Nature through and through, that we are *wholly* conditioned, that not a wiggle of our will happens save as a result of physical laws, and yet notwithstanding that we are en rapport with reason. - How to conceive it? Who knows? I'm convinced that the defensive tactics of the French 'spiritualists' fighting a steady retreat before materialism will never do anything. - It is not that we are all nature *but* some point which is reason, but that all is Nature *and* all is reason too. We shall see, damn it, we shall see."

The thrust of Evan Harris Walker's *The Physics of Consciousness* is that thanks to the advances not only of neuroscience but also of quantum mechanics (for the surprising "new physics" of quantum mechanics seems also, unbeknownst to William James, to have been needed before the nature of consciousness could begin to be understood), we are now, at last, at the point where we can we can perhaps begin to see how it is that we are, in James's terms, both nature and "reason" -- by which of course James means "mind." According to Walker, quantum mechanics, by demonstrating that observation is not incidental but woven into the very fabric of reality, has completed what was begun by relativity theory and obliterated forever the plausibility of a worldview founded upon objective reality. For it is not matter and energy in space-time but *observation* (which is just a more technical-sounding term for consciousness), that is at the heart of reality. Only observation, it seems, can "collapse the state vector" and force quantum clouds of potentialities into the definiteness of reality. "Reality is the observer observing," Walker writes. (p. 309) In a sense, science, by pursuing the Copernican revolution, has put us back at the "center" of the universe once again. Walker writes: "The earth is not the center of the universe. You are. I am." (p. 35)

Walker's work is both highly readable popular science and a somewhat technical exposition (including brave attempts to convey how the mathematics of realativity and quantum mechanics produce their results, attempts that to this reader, the benificiary years ago of one year of college physics and math courses through differential equations, produced at least glimmerings of what felt like the beginning of understanding -- though I wish I could really understand the discussion of Bell's theorem, which is central to the book's argument). It is also an affecting account of Walker's personal experiences.

A little surfing on the web shows that there are many in the scientific community who are pursuing this line of thought. (Just type "quantum sleep" into the Google search engine and you'll see what I mean). Walker is not the only scientist who is convinced that quantum phenomena are somehow at the root of conscious experience -- but he is probably among the boldest in speculating about links to philosophical and religious matters.

Others will have to evaluate the plausibility of Walker's claim that "long-range electron tunneling that connects synaptic firings throughout the brain into a self-sustaining pattern is consciousness." (p. 236) I can testify, though, to the fascination and delight that awaits the reader between the covers of this book. And in addition to speculative boldness, Walker has wonderful literary gifts. What a writer! This volume is a greatly generous gift of mind and heart. I feel certain that William James, were he alive today, would be in conversation with Evan Harris Walker.

I really felt I should only give this book two stars based on an objective view of its presumptions, assumptions and hopeful speculations disguised as objective inquiry. However, Walker's tale is strangely moving, and not just because of the way he interweaves his memory of the death of his first love when she was but 16 years old. Walker means this quest; he needs it. Despite his denials, it seemed obvious to me that he began with presumptions of deity and a unity of spirit beyond time. When he expresses that sense, that intuition, his writing almost waxes poetic. I wanted to be offended, but instead I was moved.

However, when he delved into the details of quantum mechanics I sometimes found myself quite lost. His brief exposition & dismissal of David Bohm's quantum interpretation was not recognizable to me. He showed no awareness of Bohm's holographic implicant order (which results in an ontology of creative immanence rather than Walker's preferred transcendence). I am aware of the EPR Paradox & Bell's Theorem as well as the Alain Aspect nonlocality experiments (and others, more recently) that prove that divided photons or electrons are still -- against all standard physics -- somehow one entity, no matter how far apart we judge them to be. Yet, Walker's explanation and his diagrams completely muddied up my whole understanding. (It's probably just me.) And it is on the proving of this theorem (which he interprets as proving absolute nonlocality) that his whole case for the existence of a transcendent God and eternal love seems to rest.

He goes to the unadmitted consequences of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics -- that all the particles of matter, all solid reality, and therefore all the universe is the result of the "observer effect" (aka the "measurement problem"). Just as wave collapse occurs when an observer attempts to measure it and the wave then manifests as an "actual subatomic particle", so the whole Universe, according to Walker, is ultimately based in nothing but infinite wave-potential. Potential does not equal existence. So it follows that "in the beginning" a cosmic observation -- an act of divine will -- "collapsed" *some* of the infinite potential energy into the first material of time and space. So it seems to me that he implies a separate & supreme consciousness, that is, the monotheistic utterly transcendendent Deity who is not to be identified with His creation.

If our whole universe is built from this loving God through His "observation" of the infinite quantum potential, then why is life so full of crap, stupidity, and cruelty? Why must this first "observation" originate from a supreme and conscious entity who is yet beyond all space and time? Why not just blind (or even accidental) creativity? In that way, amorality & human stupidity would be expected.

In short, I mostly really enjoyed reading this heartfelt tome, but was sometimes left high & dry by some of the scientific detail or put off by the wishful thinking leaps of faith. A good read still...