ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

38 Brain/Mind/Computer
strings, the foam raging from a river that cannot change its course,
the shadow of a pedestrian (Jaynes, 1976).
Giving up on free will, T. H. Huxley bleakly summarized “we are conscious
automata.” (The negative connotation of automata as helpless spectators prevails
in the context of robots and machines, however should not be confused with the
notion of cellular automata which may independently process information and
deterministically compute, and which have been likened to biological processes.)
The helpless spectator theory was rejected by William James who found
inconceivable the notion that consciousness should have nothing to do with the
business it so faithfully attends. He asked, “why is consciousness more intense
when action is most hesitant, why are we least conscious when doing something
most habitual”
2.2.6 Emergent Evolution
In this view, consciousness was rescued from the undignified position of a
helpless spectator by reconciling the metaphysical imposition view with collective
emergent properties. One metaphor used was: as the property of wetness cannot
be derived from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen atoms alone, so
consciousness emerged at some point in evolution in a way underivable from its
constituent parts. John Stewart Mill and others suggested that as properties of
matter emerged from an unspecified forerunner, properties of complex
compounds emerged from conjunction of simpler compounds, and properties
distinctive of living things emerged from the conjunction of these complex
compounds, and finally consciousness emerged from these living things (Jaynes,
1976). Thus a scaffolding of new conjunctions were thought to result in
previously unseen relationships bringing new emergent phenomena. Coalescing
as something genuinely new at a critical stage of evolution, consciousness
assumed guidance over the course of events in the brain, and causal efficacy in
bodily behavior. In some ways this view is like the “Indian rope trick” in which
the Fakir tosses a rope into the air where it mysteriously stays, he then climbs up
the rope, pulls it behind him and disappears. Evolutionary processes may have
provided for the development and existence of consciousness which then assumed
control and guidance of biological systems. The conditions leading to the
appearance of consciousness may be viewed as a nonlinear emergence from
evolutionary events.
The emergent evolution theory liberated biologists and neuroscientists from
their burden of needing to base all of their results on known physical properties.
The mind could thus be dealt with in a subjective sense, allowing psychiatry and
Freudian theory to become acceptable without a concrete basis for concepts such
as ego, id, and superego. Significant questions which then arose included: When
did consciousness emerge Where In what species And what was it The
brain/mind duality still existed and in fact the mind was dealt with only in broad
and nebulous generalities.
2.2.7 Behaviorism
The problem of consciousness could be solved by ignoring it. Behaviorists
traced their roots to the so called epicurians of the 18th century and before that to
attempts to generalize plant tropisms to the actions of animals and man.
Behaviorists explained all cognitive processes on reflexes and conditioned
responses which were comparable across wide varieties of organisms. Thus
human behavior, no matter how noble or furtive, could be explained on reflex
responses to given situations or needs to satisfy bodily functions. Behaviorism did